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BRONISLAW

MALINOWSKI

SEX*

Brilliant and significant
essays, previously uncollected, by
the foremost pioneer in the
science of human behavior

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Bronislaw Malinowski

SEX, CULTURE, AND MYTH

Malinowski's sensitive and astute inter-
pretations of the role of sex and of religion
— the needs of man's body and man's
spirit — are unsurpassed. Now some of the
most important work of this pioneer of
modern anthropology, hitherto unavailable,
is brought together for the first time in
book form in Sex, Culture, and Myth.

Based on his research among primitive
tribes but directed primarily to modern
problems, this book considers, with Mali-
nowski's well-known forthrightness, the
questions of marital fidelity versus promis-
cuousness; premarital experimentation ver-
sus caution; monogamy versus polygamy;
and parental authority versus permissive-
ness. He also discusses the theories of
Freud. James Fraser, Westermarck, Have-
lock Ellis, and other controversial figures.

Sex, Culture, and Myth moves from the
question of sex to other social phenomena,
including the institution of the family and
the relationship of kinship, and then, more
specifically, to myth and totem, and dogma
and religion. It devotes attention to the
contemporary tension between the rational
and empirical claims of science and the
counterclaims of religious faith. In addition,
this fascinating and important book in-
cludes the Riddell lectures on "The Foun-
dalioiis of Faith and Morals."

Few writers of our time have equaled
Bronislaw Malinowski's ability to fuse an
understanding of human needs with the ob-
jectivity of scientific analysis and conjec-
ture.

II AHCOUKT, HRACE & WORLD, INC.

750 Third Avenue, New York 17, N. Y.

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SEX, CULTURE, AND MYTH

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii SEX,
CULTURE, and

MYTH

BRONISLAW MALINOWSKI

HARCOURT, BRACE & WORLD, INC.

NEW YORK

in any form or by any mechanical means, including mimeograph and

tape recorder, without permission in writing from the publisher.

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 62-19590

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY 1

1. MARRIAGE 3

2. THE FAMILY: PAST AND PRESENT 36

3. PARENTHOOD— THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE 42

4. APING THE APE 89

5. PIONEERS IN THE STUDY OF SEX AND MARRIAGE 114
Sigmund Freud 114
Edward Westermarck 117
Robert Briffault and Ernest Crawley 122
Havelock Ellis 129

6. KINSHIP 132
The Impasse on Kinship 150

Illi II

CULTURE AND MYTH 165

7. CULTURE AS A DETERMINANT OF BEHAVIOR 167

8. MAN'S CULTURE AND MAN'S BEHAVIOR 196

9. THE GROUP AND THE INDIVIDUAL IN FUNCTIONAL
ANALYSIS 223

10. MYTH AS A DRAMATIC DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA 245

11. SCIENCE AND RELIGION 256

A Fundamental Problem of Religious Sociology 266

CONTENTS

12. ON SIR JAMES FRAZER 268
Science and Superstition of Primitive Mankind 268
The Deeper Criticism of the Bible 275
Frazer on Totemism 277

13. ELEMENTARY FORMS OF RELIGIOUS LIFE 283

14. THE LIFE OF MYTH 289

15. THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS 295

Preface 295

I The Three Aspects of Religion 298

II A Sociological Definition of Myth 302

III The Spirit World in Myth and Observance 307

IV The Sacred Story and Its Context of Culture 312
V Totemic Miracles of the Desert 316

VI The Evidence of Other Ethnographic Areas 325

VII Conclusions on the Anatomy and Pathology of Religion 3 33

Index

337

PART ONE

IIIIIIII SEX, FAMILY, AND
COMMUNITY llllilililllllilll

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MARRIAGE

Human beings, like all higher animals, multiply by the union of the two
sexes. But neither conjugation, nor even the production of offspring, is as
a rule sufficient for the maintenance of the species. The further advanced
the animal in the order of evolution, the longer the immaturity and the
helplessness of the young and the greater the need for prolonged parental
care and training. It is thus the combination of mating with parenthood
which constitutes marriage in higher animals, including man. Even in its
biological aspect [as Edward A. Westermarck says], "marriage is rooted
in the family rather than the family in marriage."

The biological foundations of human mating

In human societies, however, there are added to the sexual and parental
sides of marriage other elements: marriage is given the hall-mark of social
approval; it becomes a legal contract; it defines the relations between
husband and wife and between parents and children, as well as the status
of the latter; it imposes duties of economic co-operation; it has to be
concluded in a public and solemn manner, receiving, as a sacrament, the
blessings of religion and, as a rite, the good auspices of magic.

Human marriage also appears in a variety of forms: monogamy, po-
lygyny and polyandry; matriarchal and patriarchal unions; households
with patrilocal and matrilocal residence. Other forms, such as "group-
marriage," "promiscuity," "anomalous" or "gerontocratic" marriages have
been assumed by some writers as an inference from certain symptoms and
survivals. At present these forms are not to be found, while their hypo-
thetical existence in prehistoric times is doubtful; and it is important
above all in such speculations never to confuse theory with fact.

Marriage again is in no human culture a matter of an entirely free
choice. People related by descent or members of certain classes are often

This article appeared in the 14th Edition of the Encyclopsedia Britannica,
1929, Vol XIV, pp. 940—50; reprinted by permission of Encyclopcedia Britannica,
Inc.

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

debarred from marrying each other, or else they are expected to marry.
The rules of incest, of exogamy, of hypergamy and of preferential mating
form the sociological conditions of marriage. To these are added in certain
societies such preparatory arrangements and conditions as initiation, special
training for marriage, moral and economic tests, which have to be satisfied
before marriage can be entered upon. The aspects, the forms and the
conditions of marriage have to be discussed in turn, though it is not possi-
ble to draw a sharp line of division between these subjects.

Love and marriage

Love and marriage are closely associated in day-dreams and in fiction, in
folk-lore and poetry, in the manners, morals and institutions of every
human community — but marriage is more than the happy ending of a
successful courtship. Marriage as an ideal is the end of a romance; it is
also the beginning of a sterner task, and this truth finds an emphatic
expression in the laws and regulations of marriage throughout humanity.

Love leads to sexual intimacy and this again to the procreation of
children. Marriage on the whole is rather a contract for the production
and maintenance of children than an authorization of sexual intercourse.
The main reason why marriage has not been regarded as establishing an
exclusive sexual relationship lies in the fact that in many human societies
sexual relations have been allowed under certain conditions before mar-
riage, while marriage did not necessarily exclude the continuance of
similar relations.

Marriage, however, remains the most important form of lawful inter-
course, and it dominates and determines all extra-connubial liberties. In
their relation to marriage the forms of licence can be classified into pre-
nuptial liberty, relaxations of the marriage bond, ceremonial acts of sex,
prostitution and concubinage.

Premiptial intercourse

In the majority of savage tribes unmarried boys and girls are free to mate
in temporary unions, subject to the barriers of incest and exogamy and
of such social regulations as prevail in their community. But there are
other tribes where chastity of the unmarried is regarded as a virtue, espe-
cially in girls, and any lapse from it severely censured or even punished.
Many of the lowest savages, such as the Veddas, Fuegians, Kubu of
Sumatra, Senoi and other Malayan negritos, do not tolerate sexual inter-
course before marriage. Among the Bushmen and the Andamanese in-
stances of prenuptial unchastity do occur, but they are not condoned,
still less provided for by custom and moral approval. The Australians,
however, allow prenuptial freedom, except perhaps a few of the South-
eastern tribes.

On a higher level we find considerable variety in this respect. All over

MARRIAGE

the world, in Oceania, in Asia, in Africa and in both Americas, examples
could be quoted of peoples who demand continence more or less strin-
gently, and of their neighbours who allow full freedom. In a few cases
only can we find the demand of chastity expressed in very definite
usages, which physically prevent incontinence, such as infibulation, prac-
ticed among the N.E. African, Hamitic and Semitic peoples and reported
also from Siam, Burma and Java. The testing of the bride by a publicly
exhibited token of defloration, which forms part of certain marriage
ceremonies and which expresses the value of virginity, is carried out
more or less thoroughly and naturally lends itself to deception and circum-
vention. It is found sporadically throughout the world, in the noble
families of Oceania (Tonga, Samoa, Fiji), in Asia (Yakuts, Koryaks,
Chuwash, Brahui of Baluchistan, Southern Celebes), in America (Chi-
chimec of Mexico), in Africa (Mandingo, Kulngo, Ruanda, Yoruba,
Swahili, Morocco, Algeria and Egypt) and likewise among many Semitic
and Hamitic peoples. In other parts of the world we are merely informed
that chastity is praised and prenuptial intercourse censured (Bantu, Kavi-
rondo, Wa Giyama, Galla, Karanga, Bechuana of Africa; Dobu, Solomon
Islanders, of Melanesia; Omaha, Mandan, Nez-Perce, Apache, Takelma of
N. America; Canelas and Kanaya of S. America, Bodo and Dhimal of
Indo-China, Hill Dyaks of Borneo).

Freedom to mate at will may be fully allowed and even enjoined and
provided for by such institutions as the mixed houses for bachelors and
girls (Trobriand Islanders, Nandi, Masai, Bontoc Igorot). In some com-
munities prenuptial intercourse is not meant to lead to marriage, and
there are even cases (as among the Masai, Bhuiya and Kumbi of India,
Guaycuru and Guana of Brazil), where two prenuptial lovers are not
supposed to marry. Elsewhere prenuptial mating is a method of courtship
by trial and error, and it leads gradually into stable unions, and is finally
transformed into marriage. Thus among the Trobriand Islanders "sexual
freedom" is considerable. It begins very early, children already taking a
great deal of interest in certain pursuits and amusements which come as
near sexuality as their unripe age allows. This is by no means regarded as
improper or immoral, is known and tolerated by the elders and abetted
by games and customary arrangements. Later on, after boys and girls
have reached sexual maturity, their freedom remains the same, with the
result that there is a great deal of indiscriminate mating. In fact, at
this age both sexes show a great deal of experimental interest, a tendency
to vary and to try, and here again a number of arrangements and customs
play into the hands of these juvenile lovers. As time goes on, however,
and the boys and girls grow older, their intrigues naturally and without
any outer pressure extend in length and depth, the ties between lovers
become stronger and more permanent. One decided preference as a rule
develops and stands out against the lesser love affairs. It is important to

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

note that such preferences are clearly based on genuine attachment result-
ing from real affinity of character. The protracted intrigue becomes a
matter of public notice as well as a test of mutual compatibility, the
girl's family signify their consent and marriage is finally concluded be-
tween the two lovers. Similar forms of prenuptial selection are found
in other tribes (Igorot of Luzon, Akamba of E. Africa, Munshi of
N. Nigeria).

In no instance, however, is prenuptial liberty regarded by the natives
as a negation or substitute for marriage. In fact it always is in such com-
munities in the nature of a preliminary or preparation to marriage; it
allows the young people to sow their wild oats, it eliminates the cruder
forms of sex impulse from matrimonial selection and it often leads youths
and girls to exercise a mature choice based on attraction of personality
rather than on sexual appeal.

The principle of legitimacy

Perhaps the most important fact in the consideration of prenuptial un-
chastity is the rule that freedom of sexual intercourse does not generally
extend to freedom of procreation. One of the symptoms of this is that in
all communities where chastity is demanded and enforced, the lapse from
it entails more censure on girls than on boys, while prenuptial pregnancy
is penalised much more severely than mere wantonness. But even where
prenuptial unchastity becomes an institution not merely condoned but
enjoined by tribal law, pregnancy is often regarded as a disgrace.

Among the aristocratic fraternities of Polynesia, the areoi of Tahiti
and the ulitao of the Marquesas, licence between the men and the women
was universal, but children of such unions were killed, unless adopted
by a married couple. Among the Melanesian communities of New Guinea
and the adjacent archipelago which allow of full sex liberty before mar-
riage the occurrence of pregnancy under such circumstances is a grave
disgrace to the mother and entails disabilities on the child. The Masai
punish a girl for prenuptial pregnancy, although with them the free
unions of unmarried boys and girls are an institution. A similar combina-
tion of prenuptial full Hcence with severe punishment of illegitimate
childbirth is recorded from several African tribes (Wapore, Bakoki,
Banyankole, Basoga, Akikuyu, Nandi, Beni Amer) , from America (Indians
of Brit. Guiana, Guaycuru and Guana of Brazil, Creeks and Cherokees),
from Asia (Lisu of Burma, Nias Islanders of Malay Archipelago), from
Melanesia (Mekeo and N. Solomon Islanders) and from Siberia (Aleut).
In all such cases pregnancy is no doubt prevented by contraceptive prac-
tices, which however have been reported from very few savage tribes by
trustworthy informants; or by abortion, which is far more frequent; or
expiated by a punishment of the mother, and sometimes also of the father.

The main sociological principle embodied in these rules and arrange-

MARRIAGE

ments is that children should not be produced outside a socially approved
contract of marriage. In several tribes, the remedy for the disgrace of a
prenuptial child consists therefore in an obligation of the presumptive
father to marry the girl (S.E. Bantu, Madi, Bavuma, Kagoro of Africa;
Tepehuane and Hupa of America; Kacharis, Rabhas, Hajongs and Billavas
of India and Assam; Kanyans and Punans of Borneo). In some cases again
a child of a free union is desired and expected to come, indeed it is a
condition to marriage, which is concluded upon its arrival (Sea Dyak,
Hill Dyak, Iruleas, Moi, Bontoc Igorot of Asia; natives of Bismarck
Archipelago; Lengua, Guarayos and Pueblo Indians of America; Wolofs
and Bambata of Africa). Such cases, although they are in a way the
opposite of those in which a prenuptial child is a disgrace, involve the
same principle: the provision of a father for the child, that is the elimina-
tion of illegitimate offspring. As a matter of fact, in all instances where
a prenuptial pregnancy is welcomed, the reason for it is that children
are regarded in that community as an advantage. The father consequently
need not be forced to marry the mother, he does so of his own accord
because fruitful marriage is desirable. Thus in all human societies a father
is regarded as indispensable for each child, i.e., a husband for each mother.
An illegitimate child — a child born out of wedlock — is an anomaly,
whether it be an outcast or an unclaimed asset. A group consisting of a
woman and her children is a legally incomplete unit. Marriage thus
appears to be an indispensable element in the institution of the family.^

Relaxations of the marriage bond

Among tribes where chastity is demanded from unmarried girls and
youths, marital fidelity is also usually enjoined. As a rule adultery is re-
garded as a grave offence and more severely penalised than prenuptial
incontinence, though exceptions to this rule do exist. In many com-
munities where freedom is granted before marriage, once the matrimonial
knot is tied both partners or the wife at least are bound to remain faithful,
under more or less serious penalties (Trobrianders, Mailu, Nukuhiva,
Maori of Oceania; Land and Sea Dyaks, Kukis, Hajongs, Saorias, Cera-
mese of Indonesia; Botocudos and Guarayos of S. America; Illinois, Co-
manche, Iroquois, Pawnee, Calif ornian Indians of N. America; Timne,
Ashanti, Konde, Zulu, Kafirs and Thonga of Africa). The penalty in-
flicted upon an adulterous wife is invariably much graver than upon
an unfaithful husband, and considerable differences obtain according to
the circumstances of the offence, the status of the third party, the hus-
band's anger and his attachment to his wife.

There are, however, a number of communities in which the marriage
bond is broken as regards the exclusiveness of sex with the consent of
both partners and with the sanction of tribal law, custom and morality.

^ See B. Malinowski, Sex and Repression in Savage Society, 1927, pp. 212-17.

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

In some societies the only occasion on which the wife is allowed connec-
tion with other men, nay, has to submit to their embraces, is at the very
beginning of marriage. This custom has apparently been known in
mediaeval Europe imder the name of pis primae noctis. It certainly exists
in many savage cultures (Brazilian Indians, Arawaks, Caribs, Nicaraguans,
Tarahumare of S. and C. America; Ballante, Bagele, Berbers of Africa;
Banaro and S. Massim of Melanesia; Aranda, Dieri and other Australian
tribes). Such customs are to be regarded not so much as the abrogation
of matrimonial exclusiveness, but rather as expressing the superstitious
awe with which sexual intercourse, and above all defloration, is regarded
by primitive peoples. As such they should be considered side by side with
the numerous instances in which girls are artificially deprived of their
virginity, without the intercourse of any man; with prenuptial deflora-
tion by strangers; with temporary prostitution of a religious character,
and with sexual intercourse as a puberty rite.

A greater encroachment upon sexual exclusiveness in marriage is found
in the custom of wife-lending as a form of hospitality. This is very
widely distributed over the world. ^ It must be realised that this practice
is not an infringement of the husband's rights, but rather his assertion
of authority in disposing of his wife's person. Very often indeed a man
will offer his sister, daughter, slave or servant instead, a fact which indi-
cates that this custom is not so much the right of another man to in-
fringe upon the matrimonial bond as the right of the head of the house-
hold to dispose of its female inmates.

Very often sexual hospitality is exercised in anticipation of future
reciprocal benefits, and must be considered side by side with the custom
of wife-exchange (Gilyak, Tungus, Aleuts of N.E. Asia; Bangala, Herero,
Banyoro, Akamba, Wayao of Africa; various Himalayan and Indian tribes;
S. Massim of Melanesia; Marquesas, Hawaii, Maori of Polynesia; and vari-
ous Australian tribes). At times there is an exchange of wives at feasts,
when general orgiastic licence prevails (Araucanos, Bororo, Keres of S.
America; Arapahos, Gros Ventres and Lower Mississippi tribes of N.
America; Dayaks and Jakun of Indonesia; Bhuiyas, Hos, Kotas of India;
Ashanti, Ekoi and various Bantu tribes of Africa; Kiwai Papuans). On
such festive and extraordinary occasions not only are the sexual restric-
tions removed, and the sexual appetite stimulated, but the ordinary disci-
pline is relaxed, the normal occupations abandoned and social barriers
over-ridden, while at the same time people indulge in gluttony, in desire
for amusement and social intercourse. Sexual licence, as well as the other
relaxations, liberties and ebullitions at such feasts fulfils the important
function of providing a safety-vent which relieves the normal repressions,

* See the comprehensive references in Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage,
1921, 3 vols., Vol. I, pp. 225-26.

MARRIAGE

furnishes people with a diflFerent set of experiences, and thus again tends
to safeguard ordinary institutions.

These cases where wives are exchanged for sexual intercourse only must
be distinguished from the less frequent instances of prolonged exchange,
with common habitation, more or less legalised. Among the Eskimo of
Repulse Bay, *'If a man who is going on a journey has a wife encumbered
with a child that would make travelling unpleasant, he exchanges wives
with some friend who remains in camp and has no such inconvenience.
Sometimes a man will want a younger wife to travel with, and in that
case effects an exchange, and sometimes such exchanges are made for
no special reason, and among friends it is a usual thing to exchange wives
for a week or two about every two months" ([William Henry] Gilder,
Schwatka's Search) , Analogous forms of prolonged exchange are found
among certain tribes of S. India; while among the Siberian Chukchi a
man will often enter on a bond of brotherhood with those of his relatives
who dwell in other villages, and when he visits such a village his relative
will give him access to his wife, presently returning the visit in order to
make the obligation mutual; sometimes cousins will exchange wives for
a prolonged period.

Again, among the Dieri, Arabana and cognate tribes of C. Australia,
a married woman may be placed in the so-called pirrauru relationship to a
man other than her husband. Such a man may, with the husband's per-
mission, have access to her on rare occasions. Or if the husband be absent
and give his consent the woman may join her paramour for some time at
his camp, but this is apparently rare. In order to lend his wife in this
way a man must wait until she is allotted by the tribal elders as the
pirrauru to another man. Then he may consent to waive his marital rights
for a short time, though we are expressly told he is under no constraint to
do so. Circumstances, jealousy, even the disinclination of the woman are
obstacles all of which must make the carrying-out of pirrauru rights
extremely rare. This custom has been adduced as a present-day occurrence
of group marriage, but this is obviously incorrect. It is always a temporary
and partial surrender of marital rights consisting of a long and permanent
connubium with occasional rare episodes of extra-marital liaison.

It is important to remember that we have come to regard marriage as
defined primarily by parenthood. Now social parenthood in native ideas,
behaviour, custom and law is not affected by these various forms of
relaxation just described. The children are reckoned as belonging to the
legal husband, and in this as in many other ways — economic, legal and
religious — these temporary relaxations do not seriously disturb the mar-
riage relationship. It must be realised with regard to fatherhood that
even where the main principles of physiological procreation are known,
savages do not attribute an undue importance to actual physiological

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

paternity. It is almost always the husband of the woman who is con-
sidered the legal father of her children, whether he be their physiological
father or not.

Concubinage

This can be defined as a legalised form of cohabitation, which differs from
marriage in that it implies a considerably lower status of the female
partner and her offspring than that enjoyed by the legal wife. It is a
terminological confusion to speak of concubinage when there is temporary
access to a woman, or exclusively sexual rights in her. On primitive levels
of culture real concubinage does not exist. Some similarity to it can be
found in the institution of subsidiary wives. In certain polygynous com-
munities there is one principal wife, and the subsidiary ones have a much
lower status, as is the case among the Guarani, Central Eskimo, Arau-
canians, Apache, Chippewa (America) ; Chukchi, Koryak, Yakut (N.E.
Asia) ; Marquesas Islanders, Tongans, Tahitians, Maori, Marshall Islanders
(Polynesia) ; Awemba, Wafipa, S.E. Bantu, Herero, Nandi, Yoruba, Ewhe
(Africa) ; Ossetes, Kadaras, Khambis (India) ; Battas, Bagobo, Kulaman
(Indonesia) .

It is not correct to regard the institutions of temporary and limited
partnership described above, such as the pirrauru of C. AustraUa or the
protracted exchange of partners among the Eskimo, as concubinage.

Prostitution

The institution of commercial eroticism or prostitution has a very limited
range among primitive peoples. It has been reported from Melanesia
(Santa Cruz, Rossel Island), Polynesia (Line Islands, Caroline Islands,
Easter Island, Hawaii), Greenland, N. America (Omaha), S. America
(Karaya, Uitoto, Boro) , W. Africa, E. Africa (Banyoro). In its relation
to marriage it begins to play a very important part only in higher cultures.
On the one hand it provides an easy satisfaction for the sexual appetite
to unmarried men or those who for some reason cannot cohabit with
their wives. It thus constitutes an institution complementary to marriage.
On the other hand, in certain communities of which Ancient Greece is a
notable example, i.e., "hetairism," prostitution in a higher and more
refined form, allowed some women to devote themselves to cultural
pursuits and to associate with men more freely than was possible to those
legally married.

On the whole it is rather a subsidiary institution than either a relaxa-
tion or a form of sexual preparation. Unlike the other forms of sexual
licence, prostitution is neither directly correlated with marriage nor does
it aflfect its integrity so seriously as do the forms of matrimonial relaxa-
tion which involve both husband and wife.

MARRIAGE

The economics of the household and family

We are thus led at all stages of our argument to the conclusion that the
institution of marriage is primarily determined by the needs of the off-
spring, by the dependence of the children upon their parents. More
specially, the mother since she is handicapped at pregnancy and for some
time after birth, needs the assistance of a male partner. The role of male
associate and helpmate is almost universally played by the husband ex-
clusively, though in some extremely matrilineal societies the wife's brother
shares with the husband in some of the responsibilities and burdens of
the household. The economic as well as the biological norm of a family
is thus mother, child and husband — or exceptionally both the husband
and the wife's brother.

In the vast majority of human societies the individual family, based
on monogamous marriage and consisting of mother, father and children,
forms a self-contained group, not necessarily however cut off from so-
ciety. Within the household there is a typical scheme of division in
functions, again almost universal. By virtue of natural endowment the
wife has not only to give birth to and nourish the children, but she is
also destined to give them most of the early tender cares: to keep them
warm and clean, to lull them to sleep and soothe their infantile troubles.
Even in this the husband often helps to a considerable degree, prompted
by natural inclination as well as by custom. This latter often imposes
upon him duties and ritual manifestations such as taboos during the
pregnancy of his wife and at childbirth, and performances at the time of
confinement, of which the couvade is the most striking example. All such
obligations emphasize the father's responsibility and his devotion to the
child. Later on in the education of offspring both parents have to take
part, performing their respective duties, which vary with the society
and with the sex of the children.

Apart from the special task of producing and rearing the children,
the wife normally looks after the preparation of the food; she almost
invariably provides the fuel and the water; is the actual attendant at the
hearth or fireplace; manufactures, tends and owns the cooking- vessels;
and she is also the main carrier of burdens. In the very simplest cultures
the woman also erects the hut or shelter and looks after camp arrange-
ments (Australians, Bushmen, Andaman Islanders). The husband is the
protector and defender of the family, and he also performs all the work
which requires greater strength, courage and decision, such as hunting
game, fishing, heavy building of houses and craft, and clearing the timber.

The division of labour between husband and wife outside the household
follows the line of men's and women's occupations which differ with the
community, but on the whole make fighting, hunting, sailing, metal work

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

purely male occupations; collecting, agriculture, pottery, weaving pre-
dominantly female; while fishing, cattle-tending, making of clothing
and utensils are done by one sex or the other according to culture.

The division of labour outside the household does not mean merely
that husband and wife collect food and manufacture goods for their
family each in a different manner. It means also as a rule that each has
to collaborate with other members of the community of the same sex in
some wider collective enterprise, from which the family benefits only
partially and indirectly. In spite of repeated theoretical assertions as to
the existence of the "closed household economy" or even of individual
search for food among primitive peoples, we find in every community,
however simple, a wider economic collaboration embracing all members
and welding the various families into larger co-operative units.^

The fuller our knowledge of relevant facts, the better we see on the
one hand the dependence of the family upon the rest of the community,
and on the other hand the duty of each individual to contribute not only
to his own household but to those of others as well. Thus in Australia a
great part of a man's yield in hunting has to be divided according to
fixed rules among his relatives, own and classificatory. Throughout Oce-
ania a network of obligations unites the members of the community and
overrules the economic autonomy of the household. In the Trobriand
Islands a man has to offer about half of his garden produce to his sister
and another part to various relatives, only the remainder being kept for
his own household, which in turn is supported substantially by the wife's
brother and other relatives. Economic obligations of such a nature cutting
across the closed unity of the household could be quoted from every
single tribe of which we have adequate information.

The most important examples however come from the communities
organised on extreme mother-right, where husband and wife are in most
matters members of different households, and their mutual economic
contributions show the character of gifts rather than of mutual mainte-
nance.

The split household under matrilocal mother-right

Most of what has been said so far refers to the marriage based on a united
household and associated as a rule both under father-right and mother-
right with patrilocal residence. This means that the bride moves to the
husband's community, when she either joins his family house or camp, or
else inhabits a house built for the new couple and owned in the husband's
name. Patrilocal marriages are by far the most prevalent all over the
world.

Matrilocal marriage consists in the husband's joining the wife's com-

^ Cf. B. Malinowski, "Primitive Economics of the Trobriand Islanders," Economic
Journal, 1921; "Labour and Primitive Economics," Nature, December 1925.

MARRIAGE

munity, taking up residence in her parents' house and often having to do
some services for them. Matrilocal residence may be permanent; or it may
be temporary, the husband having to remain for a year or two with his
parents-in-law, and having also possibly to work for them. (Eskimo,
Kwakiutl, Guaycuru, Fuegians of America; Bushmen, Hottentots, Bapedi,
Bakumbi, Nuer of Africa; negrites of Philippines; Ainu of Japan. )■*

In a few cases which might be regarded as the extreme development of
mother-right combined with matrilocal conditions, the wife remains at
her mother's residence and the husband does not even take up a perma-
nent abode there, but simply joins her as a frequent and regular but still
temporary visitor (Menangkabau Malays of Sumatra, Pueblo and Seri
Indians of N. America, Nairs of Malabar) . Such extreme cases of mother-
right are an exception. They are the product of special conditions found
as a rule at a high level of culture and should never be taken as the proto-
type of "primitive marriage" (as has been done by Bachofen, Hartland
and Briffault) .

The most important fact about such extreme matriarchal conditions is
that even there the principle of social legitimacy holds good; that though
the father is domestically and economically almost superfluous, he is
legally indispensable and the main bond of union between such matrilineal
and matrilocal consorts is parenthood. We see also that the economic
side can have a symbolic, ritual significance — the gift-exchange functions
as token of affection — it marks thus a sociological interdependence, while
it has hardly any utilitarian importance.

Marriage as an economic contract

This last point, together with the foregoing analysis of the household and
family economics, allows us to frame the conclusion that while marriage
embraces a certain amount of economic co-operation as well as of sexual
connubium, it is not primarily an economic partnership any more than a
merely sexual appropriation. It is as necessary to guard against the ex-
clusively economic definition of marriage as against the over-emphasis of
sex. This materialistic view of marriage, to be found already in older
writers such as [Julius] Lippert, E. Grosse, [Lothar] Dargun, appears
again in some recent important works. Criticising the exaggeration of sex,
Briffault says about marriage: "The institution, its origin and develop-
ment, have been almost exclusively viewed and discussed by social histori-
ans in terms of the operation of the sexual instincts and of the sentiments
connected with those instincts, such as the exercise of personal choice, the
effects of jealousy, the manifestations of romantic love. The origin, like
the biological foundation, of individual marriage being essentially eco-
nomic, those psychological factors are the products of the association

*See also E. A. Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage, Vol. II, pp. 360-64;
Robert Briffault, The Mothers, 1927, 3 vols.. Vol. I, pp. 268-302.

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

rather than the causes or conditions which have given rise to it.*' And
again: "Individual marriage has its foundation in economic relations. In
the vast majority of uncultured societies marriage is regarded almost
exclusively in the light of economic considerations, and throughout by far
the greater part of the history of the institution the various changes
which it has undergone have been conditioned by economic causes." ^

This is a distortion of a legitimate view. Marriage is not entered upon
for economic considerations, exclusively or even mainly; nor is the primary
bond between the two parties established by the mutual economic benefits
derived from each other. This is best shown by the importance of matri-
monial bonds even where there is neither community of goods nor co-
operation nor even full domesticity. Economics are, like sex, a means to
an end, which is the rearing, education and dual parental influence over
the offspring. Economic co-operation is one of the obligations of marriage
and like sexual cohabitation, mutual assistance in legal and moral matters
it is prescribed to the married by law and enjoined by religion in most
cultures. But it certainly is not either the principal end or the unique
cause of marriage.

^^Marriage by purchase^*

As erroneous as the over-emphasis on economics and its hypostasis as the
vera causa and essence of marriage is also the tearing out of some one
economic trait and giving it a special name and thus an artificial entity.
This has been done notably with regard to the initial gifts at marriage,
especially when given by the husband. More or less considerable gifts
from the husband to his wife's family at marriage occur very widely.^
The term ''marriage by purchase" applied to such gifts usually serves to
isolate them from their legal and economic context, to introduce the
concept of a commercial transaction, which is nowhere to be found in
primitive culture as a part of marriage, and to serve as one more starting
point for fallacious speculations about the origin of marriage.

The presents given at marriage should always be considered as a link —
sometimes very important, sometimes insignificant — in the series of serv-
ices and gifts which invariably run throughout marriage. The exchange
of obligations embraces not only the husband and the wife, but also the
children, who under mother-right are counted as one with the mother
while under father-right they take over the father's obligations. The
family and clan of the wife, and more rarely of the husband, also become
part of the scheme of reciprocities. The presents offered at marriage by
the husband are often made up of contributions given him towards this
end by his relatives and clansmen (Banaka, Bapuka, Thonga, Zulu, Xosa,

^ Robert Briffault, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 1 ; the italics arc those of the present writer.
® See the comprehensive list of references in E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., Vol. II,
Chap, xxiii.

MARRIAGE

Bechuana, Madi of Africa; Toradjas, Bogos of Indonesia; Buin, Mekeo,
Roro, Trobrianders of Melanesia), and are not all retained by the girl's
parents but shared among her relatives and even clansmen (Achomawi,
Delaware, Osage, Araucanians of America; S.E. Bantu, Swahili, Pokomo,
Turkana, Bavili, Ewhe, Baganda, Masai, Lotuko of Africa; Ossetes,
Samoyeds, Aleut, Yakut, Yukaghir of Siberia; Koita, Mekeo, S. Massim,
Buin of Melanesia). The giving of presents is thus a transaction binding
two groups rather than two individuals, a fact which is reflected in such
institutions as the inheritance of wives, sororate, levitate, etc. A correct
understanding of the initial marriage gift can be obtained only against
the background of the wider economic mutuality of husband and wife,
parents and children, maternal and paternal families and clans.

Another type of marriage gift is the lobola found among the patrilineal
and patrilocal communities of the S.E. Bantu, who live by combined
agriculture and cattle-raising. The wife and children are here regarded as
a definite economic and sociological asset. The wife is the main agricul-
tural and domestic worker, while the children are valuable because the
boys continue the line and the girls bring in wealth at marriage. Marriage
is concluded by the payment of cattle, the amount varying greatly ac-
cording to tribe, rank and other considerations from a couple of head to
a few score. These cattle are known as lobola, or "bride-price," as is the
current but incorrect anthropological expression. The lobola in fact is
not the motive for the transaction, nor is there any bidding on any market,
nor can the cattle be disposed of at will by the receiver, i.e., the girl's
father. Some of them have to be distributed by him according to fixed
tribal custom among particular relatives of the girl; the rest he has to use
for the provision of a wife for his son, i.e., the girl's brother, or else, if
he has no male heir, he contracts another wife for himself, in order to
obtain the desired male descendants. In case of divorce the marriage gift
has to be returned as the identical cattle given and not merely in an
equivalent form. The lobola is thus rather a symbolic equivalent repre-
senting the wife's economic efficiency, and it has to be treated as a deposit
to be spent on another marriage.

In Melanesia the husband's initial gift at marriage is a ritual act, and
is always reciprocated by the wife's family. This is the case also among
certain American tribes (Tshimshian, Coast Salish, Bellacoola, Delaware,
Ojibway, Navaho, Miwok) ; in Siberia (Mordwin, Ainu, Buryat, Samoyed,
Koryak), and in Polynesia (Samoa). This return gift may take the form
of a dowry given to the bride by her father or parents or other relatives
but also directly or indirectly benefiting her husband (Greenlanders, Bra-
zilian aborigines, Yahgans of America; Ibo, Ovambo, S.E. Bantu, Banyoro,
Masai of Africa; Buryat, Yukaghir, Samoyed of Siberia; Toda of India;
Banks Islanders, Buin, Maori of Oceania). In some communities the bal-
ance of gifts is so much in favour of the husband that instead of wife pur-

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

chase we could speak of buying a husband for the girl (N. Massim; coast
tribes of Br. Columbia; Tehuelches of Patagonia; Yakut). Both concepts,
however, that of "wife purchase" and "husband purchase" are obviously-
inadmissible.

Property and inheritance tuithin marriage

As a rule, whatever the manner of economic inauguration of marriage,
and whatever the mutual services exchanged between the partners, the
latter have not only their own sphere of activity but their own possessions.
The wife usually claims the title and right of disposing of her articles of
apparel, of the domestic utensils and often of the special implements and
fruits of her pursuit. The importance of woman's work in agriculture,
her social influence due to this and her specific claims to the agricultural
produce — not the ownership of the land, which is generally vested in
man — have given rise to the economic theory of mother-right.

Very often the possessions of the husband and wife are inherited by
their respective kindred, and not by the surviving partner. The inheritance
of the wife by the husband's brother (the custom of levitate), which is
known from the Old Testament, but has a fairly wide range of distribu-
tion,^ is not to be regarded as an economic transaction. Like the inherit-
ance of a widow under mother-right and like the custom of killing the
widows and the suttee of India, it is the expression of the matrimonial
bonds outlasting death, and defining the widow's behaviour afterwards.

Marriage as a legal contract

Marriage is never a mere cohabitation, and in no society are two people of
different sex allowed to share life in common and produce children with-
out having the approval of the community. This is obtained by going
through the legal and ritual formalities which constitute the act of
marriage, by accepting in this the obligations which are entailed in mar-
riage and the privileges which it gives, and by having later on to submit
to the consequences of the union as regards children.

The legal side of marriage is therefore not made up of special activities,
such as constitute its sexual, economic, domestic or parental aspect. It is
rather that special side in each of these aspects, which makes them defined
by tradition, formally entered upon, and made binding by special sanc-
tions.

First of all, the whole system of obligations and rights which consti-
tute marriage is in each society laid down by tradition. The way in
which people have to cohabit and work together is stipulated by tribal
law: whether the man joins his wife or vice versa; whether and how they

'See the extensive lists given by E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., Vol. Ill, pp. 208-10;
Robert Briffault, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 767-72.

MARRIAGE

live together, completely or partially; whether the sexual appropriation is
complete, making adultery in either partner an offence, or whether, sub-
ject to certain restrictions, there may be waiving of the sexual rights;
whether there is economic co-operation and what are its limits. The details
and the typical rules and variations of all this have already been discussed,
as well as, incidentally, the ways in which the rules are enforced. But it
must be added that in no other subject of anthropology is our knowledge
so limited as in the dynamic problems of why rules are kept, how they
are enforced, and how they are evaded or partially broken.^

Only on one or two points are we habitually informed by ethnographic
observers, as to what penalties attach to a breach of law and custom
and what premiums are set on their careful and generous observance.
Thus, we are often informed how adultery is dealt with, though we usu-
ally get exaggerated accounts of the severity of the law on this point.
Again, to anticipate, incest and exogamy are usually surrounded with
definite sanctions, some social and some supernatural. The manners and
morals of daily contact within the household are usually laid down and
enforced by that complicated and imponderable set of forces which
governs all human behaviour in its everyday aspects and makes people
distinguish between "good" and "bad form" in every human society. The
validity of the economic duties of husband and wife are as a rule based
on the fact that the services of the one are conditional on the services
of the other, and that a very lazy or unscrupulous partner would eventu-
ally be divorced by the other.

Divorce

This brings us to the subject of the dissolution of marriage. Marriage is
as a rule concluded for life — at times beyond death, as mentioned above.
It is questionable whether the short period "marriages" reported from
isolated districts (Eskimo of Ungava district, some tribes of the Indian
Archipelago, Arabia, Persia, Tibet) deserve the name of marriage, i.e.,
whether they should not be put into a different sociological category;
but our accounts of them are too slight to allow of deciding this question.
In some tribes we are told that marriage is indissoluble (Veddas, Anda-
manese, certain tribes of the Indian Archipelago and Malay Peninsula).
The general rule, however, is that divorce is possible, but not easy, and
entails damages and disabilities to both partners. Even where divorce is
said to be easy for husband and for wife, we find on further enquiry that
a considerable price has to be paid for the "liberty to divorce," that it is
easy only to exceptionally powerful or successful men and women, and
that it involves in most cases loss of prestige and a moral stigma. Often

' Cf. B. Malinowski, Crime and Custom in Savage Society, 1926.

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

also divorce is easy only before children have been born, and it becomes
difficult and undesirable after their arrival. In fact the main ground for
divorce, besides adultery, economic insufficiency or bad temper, is sterility
in the wife or impotence in the husband. This emphasises the aspect of
marriage as an institution for the preservation of children.

The threat of divorce and of the disabilities which it entails is one of
the main forces which keep husband and wife to their prescribed conduct.
At times the husband is kept in check by the payment he gave at mar-
riage and which he can reclaim only when the union is dissolved through
no fault of his. At times the considerable economic value of the wife is
the motive of his good and dutiful conduct.

The status of husband and wife

The duties of the wife towards the husband are apparently in some com-
munities enforced to a considerable extent by his personal strength and
brutality, and by the authority given him by custom. In others, however,
husband and wife have an almost equal status. Here again, unfortunately,
we find too often in ethnographical accounts generalities and stock phrases
such as that ''the wife is regarded as the personal property of the hus-
band," as ''his slave or chattel," or else again we read that "the status of
the wife is high." The only correct definition of status can be given by a
full enumeration of all mutual duties, of the limits to personal liberty
established by marriage, and of the safeguards against the husband's bru-
tality or remissness, or, on the other hand, against the wife's shrewish-
ness and lack of sense of duty. It is often held that mother-right and the
economic importance of woman's work, especially in agricultural com-
munities, go with a high social status of the wife, while in collecting,
nomadic and pastoral tribes her status is on the whole lower.®

Marriage not only defines the relations of the consorts to each other,
but also their status in society. In most tribes, marriage and the establish-
ment of an independent household are a condition for the attainment
of the legal status of full tribesman in the male and of the rank and
title of matron in the woman. Under the system of age-grades the
passage through certain initiation rites is a condition of marriage and
this is as a rule concluded soon after it is permitted. -"^^ In all tribes, how-
ever, all normal and healthy tribesmen and women are married, and even
widows and widowers remarry if they are not too old, under the penalty
of losing some of their influence. The attainment of a full tribal status is
always a powerful motive for marriage.

"E. Grosse, in Die Formen der Familie tind die Formen der Wirtschajt; Wilhelm
Schmidt and Koppers, in Vdl\er und Kulturen.

Cf. Hutton Webster, Primitive Secret Societies [2nd ed., rev., 1932]; Heinrich
Schurtz, Alterskjassen und Mdnnerbiinde, 1902,

MARRIAGE

The laws of legitimate descent

Marriage affects not only the status of the consorts and their relations,
but imposes also a series of duties on the parents with regard to children,
and defines the status of children by reference to the parents.

As we know already in virtue of the universal principle of legitimacy,
the full tribal or civil status of a child is obtained only through a legal
marriage of the parents. Legitimacy is at times sanctioned by penalties
which devolve on the parents, at times by the disabilities under which
illegitimate children suffer, at times again by inducements for the adop-
tion of children or for their legitimisation by the presumptive father or
some other man.

In connection with this latter point it is necessary to realise that the
children have invariably to return in later life some of the benefits re-
ceived earlier. The aged parents are always dependent on their children,
usually on the married boys. Girls at marriage often bring in some sort of
emolument to their parents and then continue to help them and look after
them. The duties of legal solidarity also devolve on the children, uniting
them to father or mother according to whether we deal with a matrilineal
or a patrilineal society.

One of the most important legal implications of marriage is that it
defines the relation of the children to certain wider groups, the local
community, the clan, the exogamous division and the tribe. The children
as a rule follow one of the parents, though more complex systems are also
in existence, and the unilateral principle of descent is never absolute.
This however belongs to the subject of Kinship.

Modes of concluding marriage

In studying the legal aspect of marriage, it is extremely important to
realise that the matrimonial contract never derives its binding force from
one single act or from one sanction. The mistake has often been made in
discussing the "origin of marriage," of attributing to this or that mode
of concluding it a special genetic importance or legal value. Marriage has
in turn been derived from mere subjugation by brutal force (the old
patriarchal theory) ; from appropriation by capture in foreign tribes
([John Ferguson] McLennan's hypothesis) ; from feminine revolt against
hetairism ([Johann Jakob] Bachofen) ; from economic appropriation or
purchase (the materialist interpretation of early marriages); from pithe-
canthropic patriarchy (Atkinson, Freud) ; and from matria pofestas (Brif-
fault). All these views overstate the importance of one aspect of marriage
or even of one element in the modes of its conclusion; some even invent
an imaginary state or condition.

In reality marriage is the most important legal contract in every hu-

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

man society, the one which refers to the continuity of the race; it im-
plies a most delicate and difficult adjustment of a passionate and emo-
tional relationship with domestic and economic co-operation; it involves
the cohabitation of male and female, perennially attracted and yet in
many ways for ever incompatible; it focuses in a difficult personal rela-
tionship of two people the interest of wider groups: of their progeny, of
their parents, of their kindred, and in fact of the whole community.

The validity of the marriage bond derives its sanctions from all these
sources. This expresses one of the most important truths concerning
marriage. The complexity of motives for which it is entered, the utility
of the partners to each other, their common interest in the children's
welfare, last, not least, the interest which the kindred and the community
have in the proper upbringing of the offspring — these are the real founda-
tions of marriage and the source of its legally binding character.

All this finds an expression in the modes of contracting marriage.
These always contain the element of public approval; the collaboration
of the families and the kindred of each partner; some material pledges
and securities; some ritual and religious sanctions; last, not least, the
consent of the parties concerned.

In the old manuals and statements concerning marriage an important
place is usually taken by the classical list of the various "modes of con-
cluding" it: marriage by capture, by purchase and by service, by infant
betrothal, elopement, exchange, mutual consent, and so on.^^

This classification is unsatisfactory. It exaggerates as a rule one aspect
out of all proportion, and attributes to this one aspect an overwhelming
influence upon the whole institution which it never possesses. "Marriage
by purchase" we have already dismissed as a crude misnomer, while "serv-
ice" is but a detail in the economics of certain marriages. "Marriage by
capture," which has played such a prominent part in speculation and
controversy from McLennan onward, never could have been a real institu-
tion: though a man may occasionally wed a woman captured by force
in a war, such an occurrence is always an exception; it never was a rule,
still less a "stage in human evolution." Tribal endogamy is the universal
rule of mankind. Ceremonial fights and ritual capture occur at wedding
ceremonies over a wide area.^^ They are capable of interpretation in terms
of actual psychology and of existing social conditions. To regard them
as survivals of "marriage by capture" is erroneous, and on this point
there is now an almost universal agreement. Capture and violence, as well
as purchase from other tribes, or on the slave-market, lead to concubinage,
and at times supply prostitutes, but only very rarely legal wives.

" Cf. even such an excellent and recent account as the article on "Marriage," by
W. H. R. Rivers, in Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.

See E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 254-77; A. E. Crawley, [The Mystic
Rose,] Vol. II, pp. 76-100; Robert Briffault, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 230-50.

MARRIAGE

Like the contract itself, so also the modes of concluding it contain a
great variety of binding and of determining factors. But a real and
relevant distinction can still be made between those marriages which are
contracted primarily by rules of tradition; those which are arranged for
by the families or the kindred of the consorts; and those which arise
from free and spontaneous choice of the mates. In no type of marriage
is any of these three elements — tradition, arrangement by families or their
consent, and free choice — completely absent. But one or other may be
conspicuously predominant.

The most usual type of traditionally prescribed union is cross-cousin
marriage, with a wide distribution, practised very extensively all over
Oceania, Australia and S. India, and sporadically in Africa, N. America
and Asia. The marriage of parallel cousins is less frequent, and found
notably among Semitic peoples.^^ Even less common are marriages pre-
scribed between other classes of relatives, e.g., between a man and his
brother's daughter (N. Australia, some parts of Melanesia), or his sister's
daughter (S. India), or his father's sister (certain parts of Melanesia,
Dene of N. America). Another type of prescribed marriage is by in-
heritance, of which the levirate and sororate are the most notable.

Besides such traditionally defined unions, there are also marriages recog-
nised as convenient and desirable by the respective families and arranged
for by them. Infant betrothal (prevalent in Australia and Melanesia),
where a definite claim is established; or infant marriage (reported espe-
cially from India), where the bond is effectively concluded, are two of
the most usual forms of these. The main motive for infant unions is the
determination of the families to secure a convenient union. In Australia,
where an infant is often allotted to a mature male, the power of old men
and their keenness to secure young wives, are at the root of this institu-
tion. Whether similar conditions existed, or even still survive in Africa,
is an interesting problem.^^

In many communities, including some advanced nations of Europe,
marriage is mainly determined by social or financial considerations, and
in this the parents of bride and bridegroom have as much to say as the
two people directly concerned. In some primitive tribes two brothers
exchange sisters (Australia), or a man's matrilineal uncle or patrilineal
aunt has some say (Melanesia) . Where the initial payments are very heavy
and where they are used to secure a wife for the bride's brother, marriage
is usually also a matter of an arrangement rather than free choice.

With all this free choice still remains the most important element. Very

Cf. Sir James George Frazer, Folk.-Lore in the Old Testament, [3 vols., 1919,]
Vol. II, pp. 145 sqq.; B. Z. Seligman, "Studies in Semitic Kinship," Bull. School Oriental
Studies. 1923-24.

" See B. Z. Seligman, "Marital Gerontocracy in Africa," Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute, 1924.

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

often an infant betrothal or some other form of arranged union is broken
by one of the people directly affected, and marriage by elopement, with
the subsequent consent of family and kindred, overrules all other con-
siderations. Invariably in all communities the majority of unions come
from the initiative of the partners. Marriage by free personal choice is the
normal marriage, and the choice is mainly determined by personal attrac-
tion, which does not mean merely a sexual or erotic attraction. In gen-
eral the physical appeal combines with compatibility of character, and
such social considerations as suitabiUty of rank and of occupation and of
economic benefits also influence the choice. Here again the nature of
marriage entails a complexity of motives, and its stability has always to
be secured by a suitable compromise between conflicting interests.

The religious and ceremonial side of marriage

The sanctity of the marriage bond is not found merely in the Christian
religion, nor is it a prerogative of the higher cultures. The supernatural
sanction, derived from a solemn, publicly celebrated, spiritually as well as
ethically hallowed ceremony, adds to the binding forces of mere law. Mar-
riage is valid as a legal contract in so far as its breach is visited by worldly
retributions and its generous fulfilment carries worldly benefits. As a
sacrament, marriage in primitive and civilised societies alike is protected
by spiritual powers, rewarding those who observe matrimonial duties
meticulously and piously, and punishing those who neglect them.

The religious aspect of marriage is therefore closely akin to the legal,
in that it adds to the validity and sanctity of other functions, rather than
establishes new ones. It finds expression in the acts of establishment and
those of dissolution: religious rites are to be found at betrothal and
wedding, while divorce is often religiously defined and qualified, and at
death the breach of the bond finds its spiritual expression in the duties,
observances and ceremonies incumbent on the surviving partner. Besides
these ceremonial manifestations in which the bonds of marriage are reli-
giously tied or dissolved, religious ethics establish those rules of matri-
monial conduct which are sanctioned supernaturally or felt binding
through their appeal to moral sense rather than to self-interest.

Ceremonies of betrothal and wedding

Betrothal can be defined as an act preliminary to marriage, establishing
mutually presumptive claims. The period between betrothal and marriage
varies, and where it is short, it is often difficult or even impossible to
decide whether we deal with an act of betrothal or an inaugural wedding
rite. It is also unprofitable to draw a very sharp line of distinction between
infant betrothal and infant marriage. Where betrothal imposes real obliga-
tions and a valid tie, the rites then observed usually fulfil in their religious
bearing the same function as those of marriage, and consist of the same

MARRIAGE

or similar actions, both as regards ritual technique and symbolic mean-
ing. It will be best therefore to discuss the binding rites of marriage and
betrothal together.

These rites and ceremonies cover a very wide range, from the simplest
act, such as a meal openly taken in common, to complex and elaborate
tribal festivities, extended over a considerable period of time. But in every
human society marriage is concluded by a ritual enactment. It might be
disputed whether such rites in their simplest form present a genuine
religious character; but most sociologists would agree that they always
possess some religious elements in that they are solemn and public; in their
more developed form and in higher cultures they become definitely re-
ligious. It will be best in discussing the nature of wedding rites not to
draw too pedantic a distinction between their legal and religious aspects,
since the two often merge or shade into each other imperceptibly.

**The most general social object" of a wedding rite is [as Westermarck
says] "to give publicity to the union." By this the legal as well as the
religious sanction of the union is established. The contract is made bind-
ing in that all the members of the community bear witness to it; it is
hallowed in that the two mates solemnly and openly declare before man,
God or other spiritual powers that they belong to each other.

The symbolism of marriage ritual

A marriage rite is as a rule also a ritual act with a symbolic significance,
and as such it is often conceived to possess a magical efficacy; it contains
a moral precept or expresses a legal principle.

Thus the fundamental purpose of marriage, the continuity of the race,
is indicated in wedding ceremonies by ritual, intended to make the union
fruitful, to obviate the dangers associated with sexual intercourse, es-
pecially with defloration, and to facilitate the various stages of the process
of generation from the first act to delivery. Among the fertility rites a
prominent place is taken by the use of fruit or grain or other cereals,
which are sprinkled over the newly wedded couple or on or round the
nuptial bed, or handed to them or brought into contact with them in some
other way. Rites, such as the accompaniment of the bride by a little child,
the use of various symbols of generation, and the direct offering of prayers
and sacrifices, are all intended to make the union fruitful. The breaking of
some object at the wedding serves to avert the dangers of defloration and
to facilitate the consummation of the union. The undoing of knots and
laces, found in many wedding rites, makes for easy delivery at childbirth.
In all these acts we see the ritual expression of the biological nature of
marriage.

As an official and public recognition of a biological fact, as the most
important contract ever entered by two individuals, and as the act which
creates a new social entity, the family, marriage is a crisis. Now a crisis

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

in human life is always surrounded by powerful emotions: forebodings
and hopes, fears and joyful anticipations. Innumerable wedding rites are in
existence which are obviously intended to remove the dangers associated
with the crisis of marriage.

Dangers apprehended in subjective forebodings are usually conceived in
the form of evil agencies: demons or ghosts or malevolent spirits, forces of
black magic, mysterious concatenations of ill-luck. These have to be kept
at bay or counteracted, and we find innumerable rites intended to avert ill
fortune and bring happiness and good chance to the new household.
Among these are the avoidance of certain days and places as unlucky, or
on the other hand the selection of certain days as being of good omen;
the shutting out of evil influences from the place where the wedding is
being celebrated; the making of noises, the firing or brandishing of some
v/eapon; the bathing or washing of bride and bridegroom or sprinkling
them with water; the lighting of fires and waving of torches; the cir-
cumambulation of the bridegroom's tent or of the church; the beating of
the bridegroom's tent, and the observance by the bride and bridegroom of
various kinds of abstinences with regard to action and eating. Other forms
in which bad luck can be side-tracked are: the disguising of the real actors,
who may dress in the clothes of the opposite sex, cover themselves, or paint
their faces; the substitution for them of effigies; marriage by proxy; and
the contracting of mock marriages with trees or animals or inanimate
objects. Finally an important antidote against all supernatural dangers is
the state of spiritual invulnerability which is achieved by moral purity and
the observance of those mixed ethical and ritual rules which in primitive
culture often surround important acts of human life. The most important
tabu of this kind, in connection with marriage is obviously the tabu of
sex-continence. The principle that the bride and the bridegroom have to
abstain from intercourse for some time after the wedding is known all over
the world from primitive savagery to the most refined ethics of the Chris-
tian church, from Australia to the New World, while on the wedding
night there are occasionally other minor abstinences.

It is characteristic that while the bride and the bridegroom are often
considered in a state dangerous not only to themselves but also to others,
they are at the same time a source of blessing and of beneficent influences.
Thus certain rites are supposed to influence favourably the welfare of other
persons even independently of their relations to the principals; joining in
at a wedding is sometimes believed to produce benefit; a wedding is looked
upon as a potential cause of other weddings; while good luck is often ex-
pected from contact with the bride or bridegroom or something worn
by them.

Marriage is a crisis not merely in the spiritual sense. It is also an actual
sociological transition from one state to another, both partners forsaking
Cf. E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 547-64.

MARRIAGE

their old families to form a new one. The rupture with the parental family,
clan, local community or tribe is expressed in a number of interesting
wedding rites. Sham fighting between the bridegroom or his party and the
bride's family, or some other kind of resistance made by the latter; the
barring of the wedding procession; weeping and other ritual expressions of
grief and unwillingness on the part of the bride and her relatives; and the
mimic enactment of capture or abduction of the bride — these are mostly
the dramatic expression of the fact that the bride has to be torn from her
old home, that this is a violent and critical act, a final one.

But the most important type of wedding rite is that which lays down
that marriage is a sacramental bond. Here again the symbolism is wide and
varied, from the most direct expression of union by the joining of hands
or of fingers, the tying of garments, the exchange of rings and chains, to
complicated dramatic enactments of the separation and union. An impor-
tant symbohsm of the new ties to be established consists in the per-
formance of some act which in future will constitute one of the normal
duties or privileges of married life. Such acts in a way define the nature
and exclusiveness of marriage by anticipation in ritual performances.
Among them, naturally the most important are the ceremonial perform-
ance of the sexual act and the ceremonial participation in a common meal.
In certain ceremonies the symbolism lays down the relative domains of
marital influence. Thus in some cases the assertion of the husband's power
is prominent: he is presented with a whip, or he boxes the bride's ears, or
mimically beats her, and so on. In others again the wife may attempt by
similar acts to mark her independence and her power over her husband.
The economic aspect of marriage is often also expressed in some magical
act, intended to ensure prosperity to the future household, e.g., by the
smearing of butter and honey by the bride over the pole of the tent to
ensure abundance of staple food. Again, the division of economic functions
is expressed in other rites, as where the wife tends the fire, prepares and
cooks food for her husband, etc.

These examples cover the most important though by no means all the
ideas expressed in wedding rites. It is easy to see that the symbolism is
extremely rich and varied, and that it embraces almost all the aspects of
marriage. There are rites which bear directly upon sex and upon gestation;
there are rites with a clear domestic and those with an economic signifi-
cance; there are rites referring to emotional attitudes at marriage and to
moral ideas as to its ends. In technique they are all legal, magical or
religious. In short, the ceremonial of marriage covers and expresses all the
relevant sides of the institution of marriage, and as such it has been a most
fruitful and revelatory subject of anthropological study. It also has been
the main source of errors and pitfalls.

In order to avoid them it is important to realise that all ritual symbolism
is necessarily vague. Speaking of the marriage ceremonies, Professor

26 SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

Westermarck rightly lays down that "Anthropologists are often apt to
look for too much reasoning at the bottom of primitive customs. Many of
them are based on vague feelings rather than on definite ideas." The
ritual symbolism at marriage also expresses as a rule mixed and compound
meanings in most of the acts. Thus the spilling of corn over the couple
may mean fecundity, prosperity, good husbandry as well as union, and
probably it vaguely expresses all these elements. Sham fights and captures,
tree marriages or marriages by proxy have obviously a plurality of
meanings.

Nor is the function of symbolism exhausted by its direct and literal
meaning. A ritual act, fixed by tradition, defining the relevant manner of
concluding a contract, impresses by pomp and circumstance its social
importance and its binding force in the moral sense. The ethical rules and
tabus which usually go hand in hand with ritual add to this spiritualising
function of wedding ceremonies. The public and official nature of the
marriage act, often marked by the presence of an officiating priest, ruler
or magician; heralded by banns and public announcements; sealed by
witnesses and documents; enhanced by the sacredness of place and of time
constitutes the widest and most general function of the rite, and that is
to make marriage public, binding, sacred and morally impressive.

The dissolution of vtarriage in ritual

The binding forces of the marriage contract, and its ritual and moral
character, are expressed as clearly at the dissolution by divorce or death
as at its inception. Unfortunately our information is so defective on this
point that a brief survey only can be given.

Divorce in higher cultures is a religious matter, to be carried out under
the supervision of the church, and with the observance of certain formali-
ties which express and safeguard the sanctity of the sacrament. From lower
cultures we find only a few examples of divorce rites, where such symbolic
acts as the breaking of a rod, the tearing of a leaf, or the casting away of
some object are pubhcly performed (Kacharis, Hajongs, KJiasis of N.W.
India; Bagobo of Mindanao; Tumbuka of C. Africa; certain Canadian
Indians; Maori of New Zealand).

Far more material is at our disposal referring to the persistence of the
matrimonial bonds at death. They are never dissolved automatically by the
decease of either partner, and their tenacity is greater for the widow than
for the widower. But in either case the death of one consort imposes a
number of ritual and moral observances on the other, the fulfilment of
which is an essential part of the marriage contract.

The widow, or widower, usually plays the most prominent part among
all mourners. Thus among certain peoples the widow has to perform

^® The History of Human Marriage, Vol. II, p. 563.

MARRIAGE

various duties, extending over a more or less considerable period, at the
grave of her husband. She has to sleep beside or over it; to supply it with
provisions; to keep a fire burning there perpetually (Takulli, Kutchin,
Mosquito, Pima Indians of America; Minas, Nsakara, Baganda of Africa;
Pentecost Islanders and certain Papuans of Oceania; Kukis of India). Even
more telling are the long series of tabus and duties to be observed by the
widow before she is allowed to rerqarry: she must remain chaste, refrain
from bathing or renewing her garments, avoid certain foods, etc. (Omaha,
Stlathlumh, Creek, Chickasaw, Algonkin, Iroquois, Dakota, Eskimo of
N. America; Angoni, Bakoba, Baya, Bawele, Baganda, Akamba, Herero,
BaThonga, Zulu of Africa; Amoor tribes and Kukis of India; Bontoc
Igorot of the Philippines; Maori of New Zealand; Ainu, Yakuts, Kam-
chadal of N.E. Asia).

Similar regulations prevent the widower from entering into a new
alliance immediately after he has been set free by his wife's death. Thus
among many peoples (Greenlanders, Eskimo, Aleut; Dakota, Omaha,
Shawnee of N. America; Herero, Bushmen, BaThonga, Zulu of Africa;
certain Papuan tribes; the Bontoc Igorots and the Ainu) the surviving
husband has to live single for a time during which he is subjected to
various restrictions and observances, such as refraining from sexual inter-
course.

The most definite affirmation of the persistence of marital bonds is
found among those people who completely forbid remarriage to widows
(Tikopians, Rotumans, Marquesans, Line Islanders in Polynesia; Chinese;
Ainu of Japan; Formosans; Brahmans of India) or to widowers (Ainu,
Formosans, Biduanda Kallang of Malay Peninsula).

Even this is overshadowed by the institution of suttee^ the sentence of
death passed by religious tradition over the widow at her husband's death
so that her spirit might follow his into the next world. This institution is
found not only in India, from where we have borrowed its name, but also
among the Comanche, Cree and certain Calif ornian tribes of N. America;
in Dahomey and among the BaFiote of Africa; in the New Hebrides, Fiji>
Solomon Islands, Pentecost Island and New Zealand of Oceania.

The social conditions of marriage

With this we have finished the analysis of the various aspects of marriage,
biological, domestic, economic, legal and religious. It will be necessary still
briefly to consider marriage in relation to other modes of grouping, and to
discuss certain barriers to and qualifications for matrimony, connected
with membership in wider groups.

Marriage is never free in the sense that any man would be at liberty to
marry any woman. Natural and physical impediments obviously do not
come here under consideration, since we are only concerned with social

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

rules. Thus it is clear that in order to marry, two people must come into
contact with each other, and under primitive conditions this is possible
only when they belong to the same tribe, or to tribes who meet in peaceful
commerce or in warfare. Tribal or natural endogamy is thus the first con-
dition of marriage, but it is of secondary interest to the sociologist, and
must be distinguished from strict endogamy.

Endogamy proper is the rule which allows marriage only between mem-
bers of a section of a tribe and forbids unions between members of two
sections. Strict endogamy is rare. It occurs mainly in India where members
of the same caste only are allowed to marry. In other parts of India we find
a system called hypergamy in which a man is allowed to marry a woman
of a lower section in his caste. He may also marry a woman of the same
section if other conditions allow this. But a woman may not marry a man
of a lower section on penalty of loss of status of her whole family. In some
communities there is competition to secure husbands of high sections.

In primitive communities endogamy is not very widespread. It occurs in
tribes where there is a degraded class of artisans or else stratification by
rank (Polynesia; Korea, Japan; Trobriand Islands of Melanesia; Algonkin,
Salish of N. America; Masai, Banyankole, Karanga and other tribes of
E. and S. Africa) . In such cases we often find endogamy in what might be
called an approximate form. Indeed such approximate endogamy, as a
tendency to marry within the profession, class or rank, is, as an unwritten
law, well-nigh universal in primitive and civilised communities.

Another type of endogamy which is very widespread is that associated
with religion. In very few religions is marriage outside the group of the
faithful permitted. Islam, Judaism, Christianity and Hinduism are cases in
point. Primitive religion as a rule need not be intolerant as regards mixed
marriages, because there the tribal barriers and lack of communication act
with sujSicient stringency.

The prohibition of incest

The most widely spread and most rigidly enforced qualification to marriage
is the set of rules which prohibit unions between the members of the same
family. These are known as the rules of incest, and play a great part in
the constitution of the family and in the regulation of primitive kinship.
Incest has become also of great importance in modern psychology through
the speculations of Freud and the psychoanalytic school.

Although incestuous unions between near relatives are universally
abhorred and prohibited, the rules differ greatly from one society to
another as regards the prohibited degrees as well as the stringency and
character of the sanctions. Marriages between mother and son and between
father and daughter are universally prohibited by law, custom and moral
sentiment. Statements can be quoted, it is true, of tribes among whom
more or less irregular unions between parents and children do occur. Thus

MARRIAGE

marriages between mother and son have been reported from the Caribs,
Eskimo, Pioje, Tinne of America; Minahassa of Celebes and Kalang of
Java; New Caledonians; and the Banyoro of Africa. Again unions between
father and daughter are said to occur among the Minahassa of Celebes,
Karens of Burma, and in the Solomon, Marshall and Pelew Islands of
Oceania. Even better attested are the marriages between brother and sister
(Marshall Islands and Hawaii; ancient Irish, Egyptian and Inca royal
families) .

When we go beyond the family group, the prohibitions of marriage
between uncles and nieces, aunts and nephews, first and second cousins,
and so on, vary greatly. In some communities certain of these unions are
explicitly encouraged and regarded as desirable; in others forbidden. About
preferential marriages between relatives we have already spoken. Extensive
prohibitions of marriage between distant kindred exist, besides the Western
Christian civilisations also among a number of other tribes and cultures
(Salish, Eskimo, Pipites of Salvador, Aztecs, Araucanians, Abipones, Ona,
Yahgan of America; Koryak, Yukaghir, Kalmuck of N.E. Asia; Torres
Straits Islanders, Mekeo, Polynesians of Oceania; S.E. Bantu of Africa).

Exogamy

This is the system which far larger groups of people are regarded as
related to each other and their members forbidden to intermarry. It is
found mainly in association with the classificatory nomenclature of kinship
terms and the clan organisation. Whether exogamy is genetically connected
with incest, i.e., whether it is an extension of the tabu on intercourse and
marriage within the family, or an independent institution, is a debated
question.

Exogamy embraces the widest number of people, where it is based on
the dual organisation and debars from intercourse or marriage one half of
the tribesmen and tribeswomen. Normally exogamy is an attribute of
clan, i.e., of the group of people who trace their descent to a common
ancestor, have in most cases the same totem, and fulfill a number of
functions together. The clans are sometimes a subdivision of the tribe,
based numerically on the dual principle, as where we have two, four or
eight clans. At times there is an odd and more or less considerable number
of clans, and exogamy is enforced only within each of these divisions. The
prohibitions as a rule apply unilaterally (Iroquois, Huron, Lenape, Mohe-
gan, Miami, Shawnee, Creek, Sauk, Fox, Kickapoo, Blackfoot, Dakota,
Seminole of N. America; Arawak and Goajiro of S. America; Tungus,
Yakut, Samoyed, Ostyak, Tartars of N.E. Asia; various aboriginal peo-
ples of India; Torres Straits Islanders, Papuans, Melanesians, Polynesians

"See E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 192-218; Sir James George Frazer,
Totemism and Exogamy, 1910, Vol. IV, passim; B. Malinowski, Sex and Repression in
Savage Society, 1927, Part IV.

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

and Micronesians of Oceania; Hottentot, S.E. Bantu, Anyanja, Wayao,
Awemba, Makololo, Akonde, Masai, Akamba, Baganda and other E. Af-
rican tribes; Ashanti and other W. African tribes). Only in a few cases
has exogamy to be observed with regard to the clans of both parents
(Omaha, Osage of N. America; certain Naga tribes of Assam; S. Massim
of Melanesia, Herero, Lango of Africa).

A specially complex set of conditions prevails in the tribes of C. Aus-
tralia, where there is a twofold division into (a) totemic clans, which are
not strictly exogamous; and (b) matrimonial classes, which strictly cor-
respond to kinship divisions, and which are not only exogamous, but
regulate marriage to the extent that a member of one of them has to marry
into one and one only of the remaining three or seven classes, as the case
may be.

The forms of marriage

From the foregoing description it will be clear that there is a considerable
range within which the constitution of marriage can vary. For as we have
seen there can be many different arrangements in the domestic, legal,
economic and ceremonial sides of marriage, and each of their manifold
combinations constitutes a distinct form of marriage.

The term ''form of marriage" has been as a rule applied to what might
be called the numeric variation in marriage, i.e., the variation according to
the number of consorts united to each other; and the main *'forms of
marriage" usually listed are monogamy, polygyny, polyandry and group-
marriage. To deal with this classification adequately it is necessary to
distinguish hypothetical assumptions from actually existing social arrange-
ments. From this point of view we can at once eliminate "group-
marriage," since our previous analysis has shown that the pirratiru relation-
ship of Australia and similar institutions among the Eskimo and in Siberia
can not in their parental, economic, legal or religious functions be regarded
as a form of marriage.

Polyandry

This is the name given to a union in which several men are legally bound
in marriage to one woman. Polyandry is the rarest of the numeric varieties
of marriage, and unfortunately the one on which, in spite of its great
theoretical importance, we possess but very mieagre and inadequate infor-
mation. Polyandry is not found among any of the more primitive peoples,
and its distribution is almost completely confined to the highlands of
S. India and C. Asia, with isolated exceptions, such as one African tribe
(Bahima) and some Eskimo, among whom it occurs, but infrequently.

In Tibet and the adjacent countries there exists polyandry of the
fraternal type, i.e., several brothers share the wife in common. All the
husbands live together with their common wife as members of the same

MARRIAGE

household, and cohabit successively with her. Children born of these mar-
riages are sometimes regarded as the legal descendants of the eldest brother-
husband only; in other cases it appears that when a child is born it is
attributed to him by whom the mother asserts that she has conceived it.

Among the Nayars of S.W. India there is a so-called form of polyandry
which has played an important though rather deceptive part in the theories
of marriage. A girl goes through a form of marriage with a man, but then
really consorts with a number of men who need not be related to one
another. She lives apart from her partners, who cohabit with her suc-
cessively by agreement among themselves. Owing to the matrilincal insti-
tutions of this people, the children of such marriages inherit from their
mother's brother, but the social importance of fatherhood is seen in the
fact that the woman, when pregnant, always nominates one or other of
the men as the father of the child, and he is obliged to provide for it and
to educate it.

Another account is that by Dr. Rivers, of the Toda polyandry, which
can be taken as the representative of the simpler type of this institution
in S. India. Among the Toda, several men, usually two or three brothers,
share the wife, but it is the rule that they cohabit with her in succession.
Again, the children are not owned in common by the husbands, but each
child is allotted individually to one, not with reference to any presumption
of physical paternity, but in virtue of a ritual act performed by the man
over the child, an act which establishes social paternity and confers legiti-
mate descent on the child.

Polyandry is thus a compound marriage, in which cohabitation is usu-
ally successive, and not joint, while children and property are not shared
by the husbands.

Polygyny

This is a form of marriage in which several wives are united to one man,
each having the status of legal consort, while her offspring are regarded
as the legal descendants of the husband. As an institution polygyny exists
in all parts of the world. There are very few primitive tribes about whom
we are informed that a man is not allowed, if he can, to enter into more
than one union. Many peoples have been said to be monogamous, but it is
difficult to infer from the data at our disposal whether monogamy is the
prevalent practice, the moral ideal, or an institution safeguarded by sanc-
tions. It must be remembered at once that polygyny is never practised
throughout the community: there cannot exist a community in which
every man would have several wives, since this would entail an enormous
surplus of females over males. -"^^ The second important point with regard
to polygyny, which is seldom brought out clearly, is that in reality it is

" Cf. however the important contribution to this subject by G. Pitt-Rivers, The Clash
of Culture and the Contact of Races, 1927.

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

not so much a form of marriage fundamentally distinct from monogamy
as rather a multiple monogamy. It is always in fact the repetition of a
marriage contract, entered individually with each wife, establishing an
individual relationship between the man and each of his consorts. As a
rule each relationship is little affected legally or economically by the others.

Where each wife has her separate household and the husband visits them
in turn, polygynous marriage resembles very closely a temporarily inter-
rupted monogamy. In such cases there is a series of individual marriages in
which domestic arrangements, economics, parenthood as well as legal and
religious elements do not as a rule seriously encroach on each other. The
polygyny with separate households is more universally prevalent. Among
the great majority of the Bantu and Hamitic peoples of Africa, where
the number of wives, especially in the case of chiefs, is often considerable,
each wife commonly occupies a separate hut with her children, and
manages an independent household with well-defined legal and economic
rights. Where, on the other hand, as among many N. American tribes, two
or more wives share the same household, polygyny affects the institution
of matrimonial life much more deeply.

In most cases the motive for polygyny is economic and political. Thus
in the Trobriand Islands (Melanesia) the chief's income is due to his
wives' annual endowment. In many African communities the chief derives
his wealth from the plurality of his wives, who by means of the produce
of their agricultural labour enable him to exercise the lavish hospitality
upon which so much of his power rests. A multitude of wives, however,
may increase not only a man's wealth but also his social importance, repu-
tation and authority, apart from the influence of the number of his
children. Hence we find in many Bantu communities of Africa that the
desire to have many wives is one of the leading motives in the life of every
man; while the fact that in many Melanesian and Polynesian communities
polygyny is a prerogative of the chief testifies to the social prestige
attaching to it.

Monogamy

Monogamy is not only the most important form of marriage, not only that
which predominates in most communities, and which occurs, statistically
speaking, in an overwhelming majority of instances, but it is also the
pattern and prototype of marriage.

Both polyandry and polygyny are compound marriages consisting of
several unions combined into a larger system, but each of them constituted
upon the pattern of a monogamous marriage. As a rule polygamous cohabi-
tation is a successive monogamy and not joint domesticity; children and
property are divided, and in every other respect the contracts are entered
individually between two partners at a time.

Monogamy as the unique and exclusive form of marriage, in the sense

MARRIAGE

that bigamy is regarded as a grave criminal offence and a sin as well as a
sacrilege, is very rare indeed. Such an exclusive ideal and such a rigid legal
view of marriage is perhaps not to be found outside the modern, relatively
recent development of Western Culture. It is not implied in Christian
doctrine even. Apart from such isolated phenomena as the recent Church
of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and the heretical sect of Anabaptists
(16th century), polygyny was legally practised and accepted by the
Church in the middle ages, and it occurs sporadically as a legal institu-
tion accepted by Church and State as recently as the middle of the 17th
century.^^

Monogamy as pattern and prototype of human marriage, on the other
hand, is universal. The whole institution, in its sexual, parental, economic,
legal and religious aspects, is founded on the fact that the real function
of marriage — sexual union, production and care of children, and the
co-operation which it implies — requires essentially two people, and two
people only, and that in the overwhelming majority of cases two people
only are united in order to fulfil these facts.

Conjugation necessarily takes place only between two organisms;
children are produced by two parents only, and always socially regarded
as the offspring of one couple; the economics of the household are never
conducted group- wise; the legal contract is never entered upon jointly;
the religious sanction is given only to the union of two. A form of mar-
riage based on communism in sex, joint parenthood, domesticity, group-
contract and a promiscuous sacrament has never been described. Mo-
nogamy is, has been and will remain the only true type of marriage. To
place polygyny and polyandry as "forms of marriage" co-ordinate with
monogamy is erroneous. To speak about "group-marriage" as another
variety shows a complete lack of understanding as to the nature of
marriage.

Theories of marriage

The last conclusions reveal once more the important truth of scientific
method that a full knowledge of facts cuts the ground from under most
hypothetical speculations. The theories of human marriage have mainly
been concerned with its "origins" and "history," and attempts were made
at ranging the various "forms of marriage" into an evolutionary series.
Once we come to recognise that marriage is fundamentally one, and that
its varieties correspond not to stages of evolution, but are determined by
the type of community, its economic and political organisation, and the
character of its material culture, the problem becomes one of observation
and sociological analysis, and ceases to move on the shppery plane of
hypothesis.

The view that marriage originated in "promiscuity," "hetairism" or
" Westermarck, op. cit., Vol. Ill, pp. 50-1.

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

"matrimonial communism," and that monogamy is a product of gradual
development through a multitude of stages, has been advanced by
Bachofen, Morgan and McLennan; has found wholehearted or partial sup-
port by a number of eminent writers (Lord Avebury, [Mrs. Margaret]
Fison, Howitt, [E. B.] Tylor, Spencer and Gillen, [Albert Hermann]
Post, [Wolfgang] Kohler, [Maxime] Kovalevsky, Lippert, Schurtz, Frazer
and others) ; and has been criticised and combated by [Charles R.]
Darwin, Westermarck, [Andrew] Lang, Grosse and Crawley.

The writings of [Lewis H.] Morgan's school suffer from an over-
emphasis of the sexual aspect, often coupled with prudish reticences; from
a misinterpretation of linguistic evidence; from a neglect of the parental
and economic aspect of marriage. They are full of fantastic and meaning-
less concepts such as "promiscuity," "group-marriage," "primitive com-
munism," which as a rule are not even laid down with sufficient concrete
details to give hold to our imagination and remain mere words on paper.
The German writers of this school, who have contributed a voluminous
output, especially in the Zeitschrift fiir vergleichende Rechtswissenschaff,
have certainly not neglected the legal side of marriage, but in applying to
primitive societies the dry legal formalism of modern jurisprudence, and
in ruthlessly forcing all facts into the cut and dried scheme of "marriage
stages," they have contributed but little which will have lasting value-

The recent advocates of Morgan's and Bachofen's view, notably
[W. G.] Sumner, Rivers, [A. G.] Keller, Briffault, have given a much
better and more concrete outline of the hypothetical early stages of mar-
riage. But even this last stand of the "group-marriage" theory is based on
an inadequate analysis of the institution and an unwarranted assumption
of early sexual and economic communism as well as of group-motherhood.

Modern theories of marriage follow closely the lead of Darwin on the
biological side, of Westermarck in his sociological analysis, and of Crawley
in some of his psychological suggestions. Such writers as [R. H.] Lowie,
[Alfred L.] Kroeber and Howard in America; [Richard] Thurnwald,
W. Schmidt and Koppers in Germany; A. R. Brown, Malinowski, and
Pitt-Rivers in Great Britain, both in their theories and in their field work
show a far greater interest in the sociological analysis of marriage, in its
relation to the family, in the correlation of its aspects, in the sociological
working of sexual customs, whether these be tabus, relaxations or excesses,
in their reference to marriage.

Some new light on marriage has been thrown by those psychoanalysts,
notably J. C. Fliigel, who are prepared to give serious consideration to
facts in their bearing upon the Freudian doctrine. Finally important con-
tributions to the theory of marriage have been made by those students
who approach the problem in its practical applications: the eugenists:
students of population; and scientific aspects of social hygiene.

MARRIAGE

Marriage like most problems of anthropology is ceasing to be a subject
of speculation and becoming one of empirical research.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Leathlcy, S. A., The History of Marriage and Divorce, 1916.
Goeller, E., Das Eherecht im neuen kirchlichen Gesetzbuch, 1918.
Shukri, Ahmad, Muhammadan Law of Marriage and Divorce, 1917.
Vandyopadhyaya, Sir Gurudasa, The Hindu Law of Marriage and Stridhana,
1915.

Granet, M., La polygynie sororate et le sororat dans la Chine feodale, 1920.
Vergette, E. D., Certain Marriage Customs of some of the Tribes in the Pro-
tectorate of Sierra Leone, 1917.
Howitt, A. W., The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, 1904.
Spencer, B., and Gillen, F. J., The Arunta, 1927.

Spencer, B., The Native Tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia, 1914.
Frazer, J. G., Totemism and Exogamy, 1910.

Thomas, N. W., Kinship Organization and Group Marriage in Australia, 1906.

"Westermarck, E. A., The History of Human Marriage, 3 vols., 1921.

Schoeffer, S., Das Eheproblem, 1922.

Iwasaki, K., Das japanische Eherecht, 1904.

Westermarck, E. A., Les ceremonies du mariage au Maroc, 1921.

iiiiiiii 2 iiiiiiiiiiiiiiim

THE FAMILY: PAST AND PRESENT *

The family, that is the group consisting of mother, father and children,
has been and to a large extent still remains the main educational agency
of mankind. This is the verdict of sound modern anthropology, this is the
knowledge derived from history and dictated by common sense.

Ancestor worship, the command to **honour thy father and thy mother,'*
the cult of a God the Father and of a Mother Goddess, have been the
corner stones of most human religions. The modern scientific student of
genetics is inclined to judge the quality of the offspring by that of the
parents. The contemporary sociologist counts cultural inheritance and
home influences as the dominant factors in the shaping of human charac-
ter. Psycho-analysis with its stress on the "domestic complex," that is the
memories derived from the early contact between the child and its parents,
and Behaviourism, with its assertion that "conditioning" matters more
than endowment, also imply that the influences of the domestic setting
must be dominant in education.

At present, however, the family is being seriously threatened and its
future searchingly questioned. "The family is going to disappear within
the next fifty years"; "sex is now used for recreation and not for procrea-
tion"; "family life is obviously a study in lunacy" — such statements could
be multipHed from modern sociological and pseudo-psychological literature.
The type of reproduction and education outlined by Aldous Huxley, as a

* A fuller documentation of the anthropological views here summarised will
be found in the articles s.v. ^'Marriage" [see Chapt. 1 of Sex, Culture, and
Myth], "Kinship" [see Chapt. 6], and "Social Anthropology" in the 14th
Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica; the article s.v. "Culture" in the
Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences {New York) ; also in the article "Parenthood —
The Basis of Social Structure" [see Chapt. 3].

This article appeared in November 1934 {Vol. XV), pp. 203-06 of The New
Era in Home and School, the monthly magazine of The New Education Fellow-
ship, 9, The Butts, Bratton, Westbury, Wilts., England, and is reprinted by per-
mission.

THE FAMILY: PAST AND PRESENT

satire, in his Brave New World, has been seriously propounded by some
writers whose authority is not altogether negligible.

There is no doubt that some of the dominant intellectual trends of our
day have exercised a corroding influence on the stability of marriage and
the family, notably, Psycho-Analysis, Behaviourism, some advocacies of
"sex communism" and of the extreme hedonistic point of view. Some overt
legislative attacks against marriage and the family, mainly in Soviet Russia,
seem also seriously to threaten the future of the domestic institutions.
The most important, however, are those influences which go beyond aca-
demic attack or clumsy legislative encroachment, which are insidious,
inevitable, and pervading at the same time. I mean such facts as the tech-
nique of contraception, the growing financial, hence also legal and moral,
independence of woman, and the fact that the household is rapidly ceas-
ing to be a profitable economic enterprise, or even a convenient place for
the joint existence of the family.

The modern woman does not need the cloak of marriage in order to
satisfy her sexual life; modern man does not need to resort to prostitution
nor clandestine intrigue. Each can earn his or her own living, can play a
role in public and political life, can move about independently and need
not marry when he wants occasionally to mate. Should there be even a
child, it is possible with the modern ease in transport and anonymous reap-
pearance somewhere else, to slip away and eventually to hand the child over
to be brought up in some sort of communal nursery, kindergarten and
then school. With most incentives gone, with the advantages of marriage
fading away and the hardships of home life increasing, one often wonders
not that marriage is affected, but that people still marry and bring forth
families, that after divorce they remarry — in short that humanity still
reproduces mainly in the old-fashioned manner.

It is at this point that the modern anthropologist who studies the past
of human history in order to obtain an insight into the future can offer an
explanation as well as some indications of development.

The anthropologist himself, in fact, has been confused in his theoretical
work by a number of factors such as primitive mother-right, the sexual
freedom of savages, the importance of the clan, tribe or horde and its en-
croachment on the family — factors which closely resemble the modern
snags of domestic life. There was a time when anthropology despaired of
the existence of the family in the past, even as sociologists nowadays
despair of the family in the future. We had the famous theories of primi-
tive promiscuity, of group marriage, of early matriarchy, and of the
gradual and painful evolution towards monogamy and family.

These views which still have a wide currency in popular and pseudo-
scientific literature have been now definitely discarded by professional
anthropologists. The change has come through a better knowledge of facts.
Reports about the existence of so-called group marriage in Central Aus-

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

tralia, in Siberia, or New Guinea, have been recently found to be incorrect.
With the fuller knowledge of facts and the changing outlook we have
arrived also at more precise concepts and different methods of approach.
We no longer glibly speak about "sexual communism," "group marriage,"
"primitive matriarchy" and the "clan as a reproductive unit." The modern
anthropologist is no longer busy dissecting the various aspects of the family
and marriage into "promiscuity," "marriage by purchase," "patriarchy"
and so on, and then projecting such self-contained entities on an evolu-
tionary line. The competent observer has discovered that "father-right"
and "mother-right" exist side by side, that marriage is compatible with
pre-nuptial laxity, that the clan and family instead of excluding, comple-
ment each other. In fact, through all variations the most stable units which
are found everywhere are the family and individual marriage.

An entirely different problem therefore has emerged for a modern
anthropologist. It is no longer the question of deciding whether the family
or individual marriage has superseded or followed the clan, whether early
representatives of the human species were entirely promiscuous or highly
virtuous, whether mother-right precedes patriarchy or vice versa. The
problem for the modern anthropologists is rather to show the relation of
these different social groups, agencies and institutions.

Let us take as an example the question of sexual morality. The distinc-
tion embodied in the modern slogan "sex for recreation and not for pro-
creation" has been drawn by most savages — drawn, enforced and institu-
tionalized. If we were to divide the lowest savages into Primitive Puritans
and Early Hedonists, the former — the Veddas of Ceylon, the Orang Kubu
of Sumatra, the Yahgan of Tierra del Fuego — look at matters in a way on
which from the "moral" point of view even Queen Victoria herself could
not improve. Every one of them regards with horror any lapse of an un-
married girl, with disfavour any libertinage on the part of an unmarried
boy, and they are very much shocked by the very mention of adultery.

On the other hand, the central Australian as well as the typical Bantu
and Polynesian, the Papuan or the Sudanese, takes a different view. Free
love making is allowed, at times there are restrictions and definitions on
the type of erotic satisfaction which can be found in the company of the
other sex. But one rule is always precise and often extremely stringent:
there must be no pregnancy without marriage. The punishment for trans-
gression is sometimes severe to the extent of public and cruel execution of
both culprits. Among the Djagga — who belong to the Bantu tribes prac-
tising female circumcision — I was told blood-curdling tales of how such
executions were actually carried out in the olden days.

In most tribes, however, some speedy and easy remedy is found: im-
mediate marriage is enforced after pregnancy has taken place; or a com-
pensation is demanded from the man, which makes the girl more desirable;
or in some cases where children are the main asset of marriage, the man

THE family: past and present

himself marries the girl of his own free will as a reward rather than as
a penalty.

This example shows that it is futile to discuss pre-nuptial licence with-
out reference to the institution of marriage. A more detailed analysis — for
which some material will be found in the articles quoted — shows that
marriage in all human societies is the licencing of parenthood rather than
of sexual intercourse. Marriage affects the course of sexual life very pro-
foundly. In fact, pre-nuptial intercourse almost everywhere is not an end
in itself but rather a form of trial union, a method of courtship, a means
of experimenting in the possibilities of marriage.

If this view be correct, we can say that even a considerable relaxation in
sexual conduct does not need to affect profoundly the institution of mar-
riage and the family. It also proves that the key to the problem does not
lie in the study of the sexual impulse detached from its wider context of
personal relations and of parenthood. We can say that the desire on the
part of the woman to have children with the right man, and the realiza-
tion by the male that only as a father can he reach full tribal status and
influence, lead to marriage and the establishment of a household.

Thus, even as it is futile to study the sexual impulse without under-
standing its psychological context of personal relations between man and
woman, so also it will always remain irrelevant to study marriage as a
personal relationship without investigating its role in tribal life. Without
personifying society we can say that everywhere tribal tradition puts a
premium on effective and successful parenthood. In societies like those of
Africa where the core of religion is ancestor-worship, a man who dies with-
out male issue passes into oblivion, while during his life he remains without
real influence in the tribe. Female issue is equally desirable in societies
where the bride price is one of the fundamental legal institutions. The
whole legal and economic constitution of a typical Bantu tribe, of a
Polynesian or Malayan society, is associated with the principle that it is
economically advantageous, morally desirable and socially honourable for
a man to be the father of many children and for the woman to be a
mother of both sons and daughters. The strength of some more highly
developed communities, notably the Chinese, the Semites, and the Indians,
is associated with the same social and moral forces.

Turning now to another aspect, there is no doubt that at present many
economic forces work against the family, and that the State, even in
such of its forms as profess to favour marriage and the family, works
against it. This is very different from what obtains under more primitive
conditions. Take a typical Bantu: he marries because he wants children,
but also largely because without a wife he cannot set up a household and
cannot cultivate his fields. For this is a joint man's and woman's work.
His wife will provide for him his domestic comforts. She will cultivate
his gardens and prepare his food. The children also, even while they are

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

being educated in tribal matters, work with him and work for him. In
his old age he entirely depends on his children who by tribal law and
morality have to support him.

If instead of taking an African Bantu, we were to pass to any other
native community or dwell on the old order of things in China, we would
find exactly the same conditions. And let me add at once, the study of
primitive religion, customary law, and early morality would show that
all the forces combine to make wealth in children, that is a strong family
and a large family, the greatest asset to man and woman.

Here modern conditions are certainly more alarming than those dis-
cussed in connection with the sexual aspect. In the large towns and among
industrial workers to-day, the self-contained household is no more an
inevitable necessity. It is even less so among the middle class. In the
modern life of big cities, what with the difficulty of domestic service, the
ease of obtaining food and help in service flats, the life of a household
seems to be disintegrating. The family is rapidly ceasing to be a group
based on joint production, or even on joint consumption of goods. The
economic advantages for a man or woman to marry are negligible com-
pared with the inducements of a Bantu or Oceanic or a Chinese peasant.

The crushing death duties now imposed by most States, above all in
Great Britain, have already disintegrated the economic continuity of
lineage. Modern taxation, with the insignificant advantages given to large
fam.ilies, works essentially against and not for the family. In addressing
educationalists one can point out a characteristic detail: the fact that
married women in many countries are deprived of any chance of obtain-
ing teaching posts in State schools. Marriage here as in many professions
becomes a liability, and motherhood a stumbling block to a woman's
career. A full analysis would show that not only do modern economic
and technical conditions work against the family, but that the State in-
stead of assisting the family very often militates against it.

But here again an anthropological analysis would prove that some such
disintegrating forces of an economic nature have at an earlier stage
worked at the expense of the family, yet without destroying it. The family
has survived the economic onslaught and extortion of greedy chiefs, as
well as the excessive forms of taxation in the highly organized little states
of Africa or Oceania. It has survived the disintegrating influences of
forced labour and slavery. It is compatible with individual exploitation
of the soil and with communal land tenure.

Again the clan, as I have shown in the article on "Kinship" above
mentioned, is not something which overrides the family but it is a group
which can be shown to grow out of the family — to be a by-product of
family life.

Thus, whichever of the modern disintegrating forces be considered, it
is possible to show that the family has in the past withstood and over-

THE FAMILY: PAST AND PRESENT

come their onslaught. Individual marriage and the family have somehow
readjusted and survived the attacks of antagonistic political, economic,
legal and hedonistic influences. The group consisting of mother, father
and children emerges always as a social unit in which the biological proc-
ess of procreation is carried out under legal safeguards with a substantial
economic foundation, surrounded by moral and religious values. Anthro-
pology proves that the physiological forces of maternal love, the attach-
ment between husband and wife and the interest of the father in his
wife's offspring cannot be readily thrown away and superseded by the im-
personal concern of the State, by the lukewarm enthusiasm of charity or
by the cold interest of scientific planning.

This ^'message of comfort" does not mean that we should be satisfied
with a supine acquiescence in the operation of modern disintegrating
forces. A policy of vigilance, indeed of active and constructive reform,
is necessary. The exclusive concentration on the sexual side of marriage
which we find prevalent in modern sociological literature is, I think, one-
sided to say the least. The most important need is to realize that in the
future we must create economic, legal and social conditions with real
advantages to those who enter marriage and produce large families.

The study of the family teaches us that a civilization which would
destroy the family would also destroy the continuity of tradition, the
interest in building up economic enterprise, and with this also the integrity
of human character.

tlllilll 3 llllllllllllilllll

PARENTHOOD— THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

*'Daddy, what an ass you are!" This was the final sentence in an argument
which I had with my youngest daughter, aged five. I had not been able
to convince her or to sway her opinion. ... I ceased arguing and re-
flected. I tried to imagine what would have happened had I thus addressed
my father some forty years ago. I shuddered and sighed. Fate was unkind
in making me appear forty years too soon.

Four hundred years earlier for such a reply a child would have been
beaten, put into a dark room, tortured or disciplined into death or moral
annihilation. Four thousand years ago, perhaps, in the Bronze Age, a blood-
thirsty patriarch would have killed it outright. But forty thousand years
back or thereabouts (I am not very strong on dates or hypotheses) the
weak, matrilineal father might have smiled on his offspring even more
indulgently than I was able to do, and without that wry twist on his
face which comes, I suppose, from undigested patriarchal traditions. In
any case, among my present-day Stone Age savages of the South Seas, I
have heard children address a father as frankly and unceremoniously,
with the perfect equivalent in native of the English "you dam' fool!"
while he argued back without any show of patriarchal dignity.

The wheel of change turns round and brings back again things that
once lived and only yesterday seemed dead and lost beyond retrieving.
To the anthropologist there is nothing new under the sun. He teaches us
to look with weary indulgence at the most disconcerting extravagances
of our time, he adopts a wise foresight and philosophic caution towards
the most intoxicating promises of reform. In this lies his value to the all-
too-sanguine sociological radical.

The anthropologist remains unmoved even when faced with the most

This article appeared in The New Generation: The Intimate Problems of
Modern Parents and Children, edited by V. F. Calverton and Samuel D. Schmal-
hausen, with Introduction by Bertrand Russell, Allen & Untviit, London, and
The Macaulay Co., New York, 1930, pp. 113-68, and is reprinted by permission.

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

shocking, dangerous and ominous signs of youthful moral decay, with
revolts of children against parents, with such symptoms as "petting
parties" and increasing divorce. He teaches us that such things have been
before and that they have passed without having killed or poisoned the
soul of mankind. And in this lies the comfort of anthropology to the
wise conservative. The die-hard who despairs or loses his head and temper
in planning all sorts of repressive and reactionary measures of retrogres-
sion is beyond consolation, or the reach of any serious argument either.

There is no problem in which comfort and caution, as well as vision
and intelligence, are more needed than the one discussed in this volume.
It is indeed the most actual and burning question of to-day — the revolt
of modern youth against the conventions represented by the parental
generation; the fight of the young for freedom, and the resistance offered
by the old.

The relations between parents and children, as well as our views on
them, are undoubtedly undergoing a profound change. As our knowledge
increases the very facts themselves shift and modify under our eyes.
Psychoanalysis has no sooner delved its complexes out of the Unconscious,
than we see them enacted in real tragedies, individual and collective. The
so-called freeing of children in the Soviet Republic has assumed cata-
strophic dimensions. The same new liberty takes less acute, but not less
puzzling, forms, in the United States, in England and in Germany. The
facts revealed by Judge Ben Lindsey, and in the works of W. I. Thomas,
G. V. Hamilton and other students of juvenile delinquency, seem to dis-
close an entirely new world of precocious vice. The champions of the
old order try, above all, to silence the denouncers, to put a taboo on any
discussion. When that seems an insufficient remedy they suggest crude,
repressive measures. The Fascist State and its imitative fellow-dictator-
ships of Southern Europe are Prussianizing education, and they thus hope
to stem the evil and to produce, under stern state control, the ideal
citizen and moral being at high speed and under high pressure.

The relations between the two generations are in the melting pot. New
forces are at work, the old [and new]"' principles are in solution, and we
really cannot foretell what the results will be. The sober scientific outlook,
the weight of facts on which it must be based, the breadth of vision which
it can give, seem more urgently needed than ever. We must therefore turn
to science.

It is the function of science to control the future on the basis of a
correct analysis of the past and present: Knowledge gives foresight in
the light of experience. In discussing the future of parenthood and the
family the sociologist will do well to reflect on what these institutions

* As in manuscript; not carried over to publication.

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

are, how they develop and how they are related to human nature. Above
all, how they work and how they have worked in the various societies
of the past and present.

The anthropologist, as we said at the outset, comes in here as a useful
helpmate of the student of modern conditions. He studies human cultures
and the organization of societies within the widest compass of human
experience. He can provide the background of comparative knowledge
against which all modern problems must be discussed. He should be able
to lay down the laws which define the constitution and nature of the
family and parenthood. He should be able to demonstrate how certain
elements vary, disappearing in some societies, hypertrophied in others,
while yet the fundamentals of relationship between parents and children
remain stable and universal. These fundamentals are the true constituent
elements of marriage, parenthood and the family. Their discovery, defini-
tion and establishment is the real task of scientific anthropology.

It might be objected that the student of society would look in vain
for simple, concordant and acceptable answers from present-day anthro-
pology. Looking up Westermarck or Crawley he would find that marriage
was monogamous from the outset. If he referred to the writings of Rivers
and Sidney Hartland, or the popular works of Briffault, Ivan Bloch, Ploss-
Bartels or [Ferdinand Emil] Reitzenstein, he would find that promiscuity,
group-marriage, and an overwhelming proto-feminism existed in primitive
mankind, and that family and marriage are late products. He would
learn a great deal about the gorilla and the missing link, he would be told
lewd and lurid stories about pithecanthropoid raping and about com-
munistic and classificatory savages; he would enjoy short stories about
long words, such as exogamy, incest-fixation, endopatrophagy, marriage-
by-capture-cum-polyandry. He would emerge learned but not necessarily
wise, not any wiser certainly, as to what has been in the matter of family
and marriage, of parents and children. He would even find himself thor-
oughly muddled as to what present-day savages do think or feel in these
matters. For these poor savages are being constantly used as pawns in
controversy and props in hypotheses, rather than as living beings and
the subjects of a living science. The institutions of the native races of
to-day instead of being used as material for sociological study, as a basis
for scientific induction, are regarded as "survivals" of past stages and
indices of vanished historical periods.

There is one movement in anthropology, however, which is built on a
strictly comparative foundation and studies facts primarily with an em-
pirical and sociological interest. The functional school of anthropology
has made considerable contributions towards this problem and the results
will be briefly presented here.-'^

^ For a brief account of the general character of the Functional method see article
s.v. "Social Anthropology" in the 14th Edition of the Encyclopcedia Britannica written

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

The theoretical issues, as we have said, have been so muddled by con-
troversy and misguided methods that it will be necessary to have a direct
look at conditions as they exist in primitive societies still open to observa-
tion. Let us for a moment forget all anthropological quarrels and theories:
let us lift the veil of prejudice and controversy, look at facts directly,
and to this end arrange an experiment in thought if not in reality.

Let us imagine an intelligent observer stranded among an entirely
savage tribe — a sort of ethnographic Robinson Crusoe. He could reveal
to us many interesting points in method of field-work, as well as collect
valuable observations. For, with an uncorrupted sample of primitive hu-
manity before him, himself unbiased by the missionary's zeal and one-
sided view of native culture, unhampered by the planter's greed, and
the administrator's spurious sense of power, he would have unlimited op-
portunities for a sympathetic study of the people around him. At the
same time, unlike the learned modern field-worker, he would have no
theoretical preconceptions, he would not be partially blinded by his previ-
ous vision of primitive humanity as dictated by theories and hypotheses.
Such an ideal observer, interested and yet unprejudiced, intelligent yet
with his common sense still intact, would register the facts of primitive
life as they appeared to him, so to speak, in layers, illuminated by deepen-
ing psychological and sociological insight.

At first he would probably be struck by a number of customs, shock-
ing in their crudity, cruelty and strangeness; and at the same time he
would be equally impressed by a body of beliefs, usages and institutions
so entirely similar to our own as to be almost indistinguishable to an un-
trained eye. Among these latter our ethnographer would probably pick
out the institutions of the family and the bonds of kinship as an out-
standing example of the "uniformity of human nature."

Indeed, at first sight, the typical savage family, as it is found among
the vast majority of native tribes — of the few apparent exceptions I
shall speak presently — seems hardly to differ at all from its civilized
counterpart. Mother, father and children share the camp, the home, the
food and the life. The intimacy of the family existence, the daily round
of meals, the domestic occupations and outdoor work, the rest at night
and the awakening to a new day, seem to run on strictly parallel lines

by the present writer, who is also responsible for the label "Functional" now generally
attached to the movement of which he is a follower. "Kinship" and "Marriage" have
also been treated from the Functional point of view in two articles in the Encyclopcedia
[Chapt. 6 and Chapt. 1 of Sex, Culture, and Myih]. The method is also exemplified
in Sex and Repression in Savage Society (1927) and The Sexual Life of Savages (1929)
which deal with the problem of sex and parenthood. Professors A. Radcliffe-Brown and
R. Thurnwald, Dr. R. W. Firth and Captain Pitt-Rivers are also associated with the
Functional movement while the following writers are spiritually akin to it: Havelock
Ellis, R. H. Lowie and E. Westermarck, G. A. Dorsey and E. Sapir, A. A. Goldenweiser
and Margaret Mead.

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

in civilized and in savage societies, allowance being made for the difference
in the level of culture. The members of the family are evidently as closely
bound together in a native tribe as they are in an European society. At-
tached to each other, sharing life and most of its interests, exchanging
counsel and help, company and cheer, and reciprocating in economic
cooperation, the same bonds unite them as those of our family; similar
distances and barriers separate them from other families. In Australia
and among most North American Indians, in Melanesia and in Siberia,
among the majority of African tribes and in South America, the indi-
vidual undivided family stands out conspicuous, a definite social unit
marked off from the rest of society by a clear line of division.^ An ob-
server would have to close his eyes or read himself blind in the works of
Morgan, Kohler, [Heinrich] Cunow or Rivers not to see this.

Had our ethnographic Robinson Crusoe an abundance of time for the
study of native customs and sufficient intelligence and method to reflect
upon them, he could substantiate his first impression by weighty argu-
ments. Thus he would find that what could be called the instinctive
foundation of maternal love is clearly traceable in his native society.
The expectant mother is interested in her future offspring, she is absorbed
in it from the moment of its birth, and in the carrying out of her social
duties of suckling, nursing and tending it, she is supported by strong
biological inclinations. In a tribe where there are such practices as in-
fanticide or frequent adoption, the natural innate tendencies of maternal
love may become rebelliously subservient to custom and tribal law, but
they are never completely stifled or obliterated. In any case, once a child
is spared, kept and nursed by the mother, maternal love grows into a
passion. And this passion develops as the mother has to guide, watch over
and educate her child, and lasts through life. To this the child responds
with an exclusive personal attachment to the mother, and the mutual
bond remains one of the strongest sentiments in any human society.

What might strike an observer with even greater force would be the
position of the father. Expecting, perhaps, from a savage man a certain
degree of ferocity towards wife and children, he might be astonished to
find instead a kind and considerate husband and a tender father. At his
worst — I mean in tribes where, through custom and tradition, he plays
the not always amiable role of a stern patriarch — he is still the provider
of the family, the helpmate at home, and the guardian of the children
up to a certain age. At his best and mildest, in a typical matrilineal com-
munity, he is a drudge within the household, the assistant nurse of his

*The generalizations of this essay will be fully substantiated in a forthcoming volume
on Primitive Kinship. Compare also the article s.v. "Kinship" in the 14th Edition, Encyclo-
paedia Britannica [see Chapt. 6 of Sex, Culture, and Myth]; and the writer's The Family
among the Australian Aborigines (1913).

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

children, the weaker and fonder of the two parents, and later on the
most faithful and often the most intimate friend of his sons and daughters.

If our observer wanted to lay yet deeper foundations for his initial view
of the permanence and importance of the individual family, he might
point out a number of traditional usages, customary and legal norms
referring to common habitation, household occupations and mutual eco-
nomic duties — all of them making the undivided individual family a
definite legal unit. The relation of mother to child, clearly dictated by
natural inclinations, is yet not entirely left to them. The mother, besides
feeling inclined to do all she does for her child, is none the less obliged
to do it. An unnatural mother would be not only blamed but punished,
and the bad or careless father would equally have to suffer under the
lash of public opinion or be punished by some definite legal measure.

Thus, as likely as not, the final conclusion of our authority would be
that in matters of kinship, family life and children, matters among
primitive people are much as they are with us. That is to say, the personal
bonds of kinship are the same in primitive tribes and in civilized societies;
and the affection within the family, the habits, uses and laws of the
savage household are entirely reminiscent of a peasant's or poor man's
home in Europe. The mother, tied by physiological bonds to her children,
fulfils the same part as every mother has to fulfil; the father in a savage
community seems to be there for exactly the same purpose as the patri-
archal head of the family in modern European society; to watch over
the safety of his children, to provide for them and to guide them through
life.

The picture here attributed to a supposed ethnographic Robinson Crusoe
is not imaginary. It is just this sort of information about parental love,
the kindly treatment of children, their obedience and affection in return,
the enduring of family bonds throughout life, which some of our earliest
and best authorities present in their ethnographic accounts. Nor is this
picture at all unreal, though it is certainly one-sided. Our early ethno-
graphic information, which shows us the individual family as a uni-
versal unit in mankind, which emphasizes motherhood, dwells on the
impressive facts of family intimacy and common habitation, and tells us
what the native feels and how he behaves; this information gives us not
only a true picture, but it brings into relief some of the most essential
and valuable features of kinship.

Yet, obviously, it is a one-sided picture. For if we were satisfied with
it, there would really be no problem of primitive kinship at all. The
earlier authorities, the patient missionaries who worked among uncon-
taminated natives, the intelligent traders who perhaps had the best op-
portunities of getting in touch with the savage, yet lacked the most im-
portant requisites for scientific observation: the interest for the theoretical

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

problem, the faculty of discerning a social institution through its concrete
manifestations and the methods of collecting objective evidence. It is
significant that most of the progress into the deeper regions of the prob-
lem of kinship, most of the discoveries of its less obvious aspects, were
made by workers in the study, or at least stimulated by speculative inter-
est. Unfortunately speculation carried away the scholars, and took them
out of touch with facts.

Let us return therefore to reality and show what it might have re-
vealed to our imaginary observer in the hidden aspects of kinship, those,
that is, which so far have escaped his attention, and in which the real
difficulty of primitive kinship resides.

Longer residence among the savages, better acquaintance with their
language and culture, and above all patient and mature reflection upon
what he saw, would have suggested to our observer certain questions and
revealed certain anomalies in the typical family life. Thus, for instance,
had he been stranded in a matrilineal society he would, in due course,
have been impressed by the constant appearance of the mother's brother,
by the assumption of authority on his part over his sister's household,
and by the number of obligations which he had to fulfil towards it; and
this, despite the fact that the husband v/as still on the spot, endowed
with a great deal of marital and paternal influence.

Following up this line of inquiry our observer would have been bound
to strike the rich vein of native theories of procreation and descent.
Perhaps he would have found that in the tribe where he lived the natives
had no idea of physiological paternity, that instead they alleged that
certain spiritual agencies were responsible for the birth of the child. If,
fired by this discovery, our observer had traveled to other countries to
follow up his research, he would have been extremely puzzled to find a
surprising variety in theories of procreation, in the conclusions drawn
from them, and in the institutions which embody these theories.

In certain tribes the mother is regarded as the only parent related by
the bond of body and blood to the child. Maternal kinship is exclusive,
the mother's brother is head of the family, the father is not united by
any kinship tie to the child, there are no legal rights, no inheritance, no
solidarity in the agnatic line. Yet, and this might have puzzled our ob-
server considerably, the father, even in such tribes, is in many respects
very much like the ordinary patriarchal father, and his position is defined
by certain rival customs and laws, apparently in disharmony with the
general matrilineal constitution.

Again, in another community, the observer would have found that,
in spite of the ignorance of fatherhood, kinship is traced in the paternal
line; the mother has very little influence over the legal affairs of the

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

household and no influence in the determining of descent. In some cultures,
on the contrary, the father would be considered as the only real pro-
creative agent, while the mother is there regarded but as the soil that
receives the seed.

In yet another community descent — that is, the system of determining
the child's social status — is reckoned neither through father nor through
mother, but is determined by the circumstances of the child's birth, or by
some social act performed during the woman's pregnancy or after her
confinement, as is the case among the Todas, in Central Australia, and
in certain parts of Oceania.

Thus in the study of the problems of descent the inquirer would be
led into a complicated network of social rules, beliefs and ideas, astonish-
ingly complex, abstruse and involved, if compared with his initial con-
clusion that "in the matter of kinship things are much the same with the
savages as they are with us."

What makes this subject difficult not only to grasp but even to dis-
cover is the fact that the natives have no explicit "theory of kinship"
or of descent. They live in a particular set of social conditions, have
certain concrete rules which they obey, some of which they also formu-
late, and have a number of beliefs controlling their kinship attitudes. But
to bring all these diffused and dispersed data into one pattern is far be-
yond the mental grasp of the most exceptionally intelligent native, even
in a relatively high culture. The unity of systems of kinship and descent
is achieved by the facts of social life and through the integrating power
of social organization. It is the ethnographer's task to discover and de-
scribe this unity, and that he can do only by observing the social organi-
zation at work, a task of no mean difficulty.

The study of the problems of descent would lead the observer to the
discovery of a type of kinship organization little known in our modern
European communities, though still existing among certain Celtic and
Slavonic peoples of Europe. The majority of native tribes are divided,
not only into families, but into larger groups which yet possess to a
certain extent a kinship character.

Thus, in certain areas, the tribe falls into two halves or moieties. Each
of these has its name, its collective sense of unity and usually a special
myth defining its character and its relation to the other moiety. The
division of certain Australian tribes into the moieties of Eaglehawk and
Crow, and the bipartition of the Western North American Indians are
classical examples of this division. Usually this halving of a tribe is asso-
ciated with strict prohibition of marriage within the moiety, so that a
man of the first must marry a woman of the second and vice versa. Thus
the two moieties are knit together into one whole, and every individual
family must consist of both elements.

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

In other tribes there are four clans or classes, in others again eight,
the further bisection regulating marriage, playing a conspicuous part in
ceremonial life, and usually having some economic importance. Among
still other peoples there is an odd number of clans which cannot be
brought under the dual or any numerical principle.

What makes these modes of grouping really puzzling is their kinship
character. The members of a clan regard themselves as kindred, trace
their descent from a common ancestor, conceive of their exogamous
prohibitions as of a variety or extension of incest, and, in certain circum-
stances, behave as if they were of the same body and blood.

Arrived at this point, the observer would find himself surrounded by
a host of queries, problems and difficulties which he had never suspected
in the early days when his attention was exclusively concentrated on
the institution of the family, and when kinship presented to him no
problem whatever.

We have imagined our commonsense ethnographer starting with the
family and arriving gradually at the recognition of the clan. Had he
been thrown by chance into a society where the larger group is more
prominent, it is likely that only towards the end of his inquiries might
he have been able to arrive at the conclusion that the individual family
still exists and plays an important part.

This would happen, for example, in a matrilineal community where
the whole group live in a big communal house, where the father is con-
spicuously absent from the family, and visits his wife in a clandestine
manner at night, spending most of his time in the men's clubhouse. But
in such a society we find in reality the same state of affairs as previously
described, turned, so to speak, inside out. For though usually absent the
father is none the less an indispensable member of the household. He has
to marry the woman if his children are to enjoy full legal status in the
tribe. He remains the guardian of the family in certain matters, he still
has to fulfil economic duties, and is very often bound to act as the repre-
sentative of his wife and children on ceremonial, religious and magical
occasions. Family life, written large on the surface of their existence
among most primitive peoples, is here the recondite aspect of social organi-
zation, bvit is nevertheless real and important.

In all early societies there are to be found the two main facets of kin-
ship: the relation between individuals and the relation between groups —
though not necessarily developed clans. And it is the tracing of the
connection between these two aspects which forms the main problem of
the sociology of kinship, and from which arise all the difficulties.

Perhaps the most baffling and disquieting of all the questions connected
with kinship is the queer linguistic usage known as "the classificatory sys-
tem of relationship." As he mastered the language our observer would
find that the child who applies the words "mother" and "father" to his

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

own parents is taught to bestow these titles upon some other people. The
mother's sister is called by the same name as the mother, the father's
brother is addressed as "father," and he also extends the terms mother,
father, brother, sister, etc., to certain classes of more distant relatives and
clansmen, while for certain other relatives he is taught to use entirely
new terms of kinship — but these he also applies not to one person but to
several people. This so-called "classificatory" use of kinship terms is preva-
lent among the vast majority of savage communities, although it is not
universal.

This discovery made, our observer is faced by a really difficult problem.
Language and linguistic usage seem apparently to break the bonds of
family, to obliterate fatherhood by substituting a ''group of fathers" for
the individual one, a "group of mothers" for their own mother, and so
on. Since our observer is well acquainted with the language and social
organization of the natives, he will not adopt the easy explanation of this
linguistic usage as a mere form of politeness, nor imagine that the appel-
lations of kinship are extended merely as "terms of address." He knows
that the terms are applied according to strict rules to a number of people
whose relationship is traceable by pedigree or defined by membership in
the clan. He knows also that behind the linguistic usage there is a set
of mutual obligations between the man and all those whom he calls
"father," "mother" and so on. The "fathers" act as group on certain
occasions, at ceremonies, in legal matters, in economic cooperation, and
they are therefore a well-defined social class and not merely a name.

Having come to realize this, our observer might make another mistake,
perhaps even more dangerous than that of regarding the family as the
exclusive kinship unit and of overemphasizing its resemblance to our
European family. Tired by all the difficulties and contradictions which
face him at every fresh discovery in kinship, he might happen upon a
new and apparently simple solution: "Surely the crux lies in the fact
that these people have an entirely different view of kinship and an entirely
different system of reckoning and regarding relatives. The cardinal point
of their conception is the idea of group-relationship. In this we have to
take the cue from the language and realize that as the people have no
special words in their vocabulary to distinguish their real parents, real
children, real spouses, and so on, even so these individual relatives matter
little or nothing to them. We must discard our own ideas, adopt the
primitive, the classificatory view of kinship, and correlate it perhaps with
certain original institutions of mankind, which we can easily infer from
the character of the systems of nomenclature."

And here we see our observer drifting gradually into speculations about
primitive conditions, survivals and past stages of human development,
and, with the best intentions, turning his back on facts, and following the
road into which most of his anthropological predecessors have been lured.

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

I have tried to summarize with the aid of our imaginary observer some
of the outstanding difficulties and puzzles of primitive kinship as they
have actually presented themselves in the course of anthropological re-
search. In the history of the problem there was indeed a time when tradi-
tion and science were, so to speak, under the first impression of the facts,
when the early unsophisticated view was universally held, that primitive
kinship based on the family is essentially similar to our own, that mankind
lived from the beginning in the typical patriarchal family.

This was the view we inherited from classical antiquity and took over
with the Bible from Semitic mythology. It was prevalent during the
Middle Ages and right up to the second half of the last century. It
dominated Christian theology — was in fact part of it. It was retained by
the Encyclopaedists who found in it a natural institution, suitable to
natural man. The early observations of missionaries and travelers did not
in any way seriously upset it. Thus it could take definite scientific form
at the hands of students of Indo-European linguistics and archaeology,
and even later of such writers as Fustel de Coulanges and Sir Henry
Maine, who both had good knowledge of anthropological evidence. Maine
can in fact be regarded as the chief scientific upholder of the patriarchal
theory.

Then came the discoveries of Bachofen, Morgan and McLennan which
overthrew the position once and forever. They disclosed remarkable and
unsuspected aspects of primitive kinship; mother-right, avunculate, the
clan system and exogamy, the importance of the levirate, polyandry and
cross-cousin marriage, and above all the classificatory nomenclature. These
discoveries, remarkably enough, were made primarily from the armchair,
by the reconstruction and reinterpretation of ancient customs and certain
previously known ethnographical facts. Morgan's discovery of classi-
ficatory nomenclature was the only one made in the field, and he imme-
diately carried it into the province of speculation.

Yet these armchair discoveries are perhaps among the most signal proofs
of the power of scientific thought in anthropology. For soon a wealth of
facts began to pour in from various parts of the world, confirming the
inspired vision of Bachofen, the shrewd reconstructions of McLennan,
and the imaginative schemes of Morgan. However distorted most of the
hypotheses were in their final version, there is no doubt that their main
tenet, the affirmation of the depth and importance and above all the
variety of primitive kinship, was based on a strong sense of reality.

The sudden and dramatic turn which opinions on the family and
marriage took was not, however, without its evil consequences: it created
the rift in anthropological opinion to which allusion has already been
made. So that at present, anthropology is divided into two camps on
almost every point associated with the theory of primitive marriage,
sexuality and parenthood. The one side, roughly speaking, regards mo-

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

nogamy as the original form of marriage, patriarchy as the dominant
principle of early kinship, and the family as the cell of society. The
other side believes in a state of primitive promiscuity or communistic
marriage, in the clan as playing the role of an early domestic institution,
and classificatory kinship as being the principle of original parenthood.

Both sides are certainly in error insofar as each overlooks one essential
aspect of human kinship and over-emphasizes the other. To overcome this
deadlock which results in sterile controversy and dialectical exercise we
must attempt to understand the reasons which caused either camp to
assume a hostile position, from which they cannot move or come to terms.

It is not difficult to see why the old patriarchal theory became untenable
and how the revolution in ideas came about. With the discovery of primi-
tive mother-right and classificatory nomenclature, as well as with the
recognition of early forms of marriage incompatible with the monogamous
ideal, most of the old tenets had to be discarded. Biblical patriarchy could
not be reconciled with the dominant position of the mother's brother, nor
the tracing of kinship through the mother with the old Latin preponder-
ance of paternal kinship. And mother-right had to be accounted for.

Why is it that, under primitive conditions, maternity seems to have
so much greater importance and to become associated even with power?
The solution which floated before the visionary mind of Bachofen is
well known. His intuition told him that originally mankind had lived
in sexual promiscuity in v-^hich there was no marriage and no fatherhood.
The role of woman was so degraded in fact that even maternity did not
lead to social influence, and women, debased by male lust, were of no
real political importance. Against this condition they revolted. They as-
serted woman's claim to her children, they created the right to love and
to exercise choice though not yet exclusiveness in mating. Woman had a
natural male protector in her brother and avunculate became an institu-
tion associated with mother-right. Thus order was born with mother-right,
and order as well as law and morals became founded on woman's right to
choose her lovers and to own her children. A beautiful theory, or rather
myth — inspiring, revolutionizing, all our ideas, irradiated with the charm
of the Eternal Feminine, making primitive woman a primeval Beatrice
who leads men out of the Hell of Promiscuity into the Heaven of Love
and civilization!

The patriarchal theory was submitted almost simultaneously to yet
another attack. It was less inspired but even more penetrating and formi-
dable, since it came armed with a wealth of fact and of almost incon-
trovertible linguistic argument. Morgan's hypothesis of promiscuity and
group-marriage came from that inexhaustible source of scientific con-
jectures— the etymological study of words. The words — in this case classi-
ficatory kinship terminologies — appeared, however, to be so clear in their
purpose, so telling in their historical reminiscences, that the early stages

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

of marriage were brought back to us, as it were, preserved in fragments of
native vocabularies.

Morgan's attack was directed, remarkably enough, against the very
strongholds of the patriarchal theory, the biological foundation of father-
hood. But Morgan himself was under the influence of patriarchalism, in
that he regarded the father as the dominant parent and the most important
person in the counting of kinship. He felt that if the classificatory uses
of kinship terminologies could be explained as regards the father, all
other classificatory uses would become plain. To him, then, the real prob-
lem was the classificatory plurality of fathers, as expressed by native
linguistic usage.

Now the best explanation of the plurality of fathers is the proverbial
uncertainty of fatherhood alluded to by Homer and expressed in Latin
legal maxims. But this uncertainty of fatherhood, in order to give rise to
a classificatory use of the term, had to be conceived as definitely institu-
tionalized. And here the ever-fascinating hypothesis of primitive promis-
cuity once more presented itself as a plausible and natural explanation
which made everything clear and consistent. If all members of a primitive
horde mated promiscuously, then all the men of the older generation
would stand in the relation of potential fathers to the child. If he wanted
to be correct he would have to use the term "father" to all of them
jointly. And, consistently with that usage, he would call the women of
the older generation "mothers," those of his own generation "wives";
while the men of his own generation would be "brothers," and those much
younger than himself potential "sons" and "daughters."

Thus the classificatory use of kinship terms was completely explained
as the linguistic expression of promiscuity, and of its later development,
group-marriage. The hypothesis, moreover, is, to Morgan and his followers,
the only explanation possible of classificatory kinship terminologies. The
fact that classificatory nomenclatures still exist in primitive communities
from which promiscuity has completely disappeared, and where group-
marriage exists only in "traces," is due (according to our authorities) to
the persistency with which words and verbal usages "survive" after their
sociological foundation has vanished. Thus the two most puzzling phe-
nomena of primitive social organization — mother-right and the classi-
ficatory terminology of kinship — led by different roads to the same as-
sumption, that promiscuity of group-mating was the primitive form of
marriage; that the communal horde, or the clan, represented the primitive
family; and that group-kinship was the form of early parentage.

A flood of arguments and corroborative evidence began to pour in as
supporting this famous hypothesis. Such survivals as ceremonial capture
in marriage rites, customs like the couvade, the levirate and cross-cousin
marriage — above all the interminable variety of standardized sexual liber-
ties and excesses, were adduced in support of a primeval communism in

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

wives. It seemed for a time as if the older view were completely to be
swept off the scientific map, as if the family, monogamous marriage,
sexual exclusiveness and jealousy were to be regarded as late and artificial
acquisitions, completely irrelevant in the shaping of human morals, institu-
tions and laws.

Then came a reaction, cogent, destructive and, as reactions often are,
somewhat one-sided. The biological warning of Darwin, amplified and
sociologically supplemented by Westermarck, put a serious query against
the assumption of promiscuity and group-marriage as incom.patible with
selective mating, that is as a condition which would inevitably lead to
racial degeneration and social disorder. McLennan, though in agreement
with Morgan's main hypothesis, pointed out certain obvious linguistic
fallacies involved in taking the classificatory terms at their face value;
and his arguments were taken up later by Andrew Lang, Crawley and
Westermarck. Finally Westermarck, the main leader of this reaction and
the champion of monogamy, pointed out that both marriage in single
pairs and the family play a conspicuous part in the most primitive so-
cieties known to us, and that the father is by no means a mere communal
cipher, but is always the head of the undivided family and household,
even where kinship is traced through women.

And here the argument still stands. One side, represented by Wester-
marck, Andrew Lang, Crawley and Pater Schmidt, insists on the im-
portance of the family, individual kinship, and the paramount relevance
of biological factors; while the other, led by Durkheim and Rivers, Sidney
Hartland, Frazer and Briffault, granting all this more or less grudgingly,
discounts the sociological value of biological factors, insists on the com-
munistic inclinations of primitive man, presents classificatory terms and
classificatory legal usages, mother-right and the avunculate, as puzzles
which cannot be solved except by the hypothesis of communal marriage
and group-kinship.

There is no doubt that each side neglects one fundamental aspect of
the subject. Looking at facts through the eyes of our imaginary observer,
we saw that neither the family nor the clan can be ignored. Both exist and
they do not exclude each other but rather are complementary. We must
not neglect the family or parenthood in primitive society because it is a
familiar and drab subject. We must not overemphasize group-kinship
because it is so strange and exotic; because it lends itself to speculations
about the communistic savage; because it seems to explain so well sensa-
tional and ''queer" features, such as classificatory terms, mother-right
I and exogamy and various sexual excesses. The temptation is great to
overlook the obvious — the tout comme chez nous — but it must be resisted.
On the other hand, we must not be biased by an overdose of "common
sense," which is too often but another word for mental laziness. We must
not decree away classificatory terms as "polite modes of address" or

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

''slovenly speech habits," as has been done. Nor must we discount sex
orgies, relaxations or strange taboos as "minor aberrations of savage super-
stition."

The functional anthropologist regards facts as being of equal value
whenever they really loom large in native life and social organization,
irrespectively of whether they are drab or amusing — whether they appear
strange or familiar from the European point of view. And when these
facts consistently appear together, when they obviously form part of an
organic whole, the functional anthropologist is not prepared to tear this
organic whole to pieces and then to place the torn fragments on an evolu-
tionary scale. The questions usually asked are: is promiscuity the original
institution from which marriage and the family but gradually developed; ^
or, on the contrary, are the family and monogamous marriage the starting
point, and communal kinship and sexual laxity only temporary aberra-
tions? These questions are for us irrelevant and fictitious.

The real question is: what is the relation between the family and the !
clan — between individual and classificatory kinship? These are not stages j
which succeed each other, and can be found here and there, accidentally
mixed or overlapping. It is absurd to regard one of them merely as a
"survival," the other as an innovation. They are two aspects of kinship
which always appear in conjunction, though the clan or classificatory
side is sometimes almost in abeyance. But since they work side by side
they must fulfil functions which are on the one hand related, on the
other certainly not identical. These distinct functions must be discovered
and defined. The first and capital problem of primitive kinship is there- ,
fore to establish the relation between the family and the clan, between j
individual and classificatory kinship. By solving this problem we shall be
able to arrive at a clear conception of kinship— to define it functionally
in a way which covers the two phases and assigns to each its respective il
place in culture.

With this problem, that of classificatory terminologies is obviously inti- j
mately connected. If we cannot explain them as a monstrous linguistic
fossil, as an encumbrance always dragging one stage behind in evolution;
if we have to regard them as live parts of language; we shall have to ask
again: what is the function of the classificatory principle of terminology?
What is there in the actually existing social conditions of primitive man-
kind which these terminologies express and with which they are cor-
related? m

Mother-right and father-right again cannot possibly be stages or shad-
ows of stages. Each of them is always associated with its opposite or
correlate. They are the two sides of the big system which defines filiation
in each community. The real problem is: why does such a system always
involve an overemphasis of one side, that of the mother or of the father;

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

what does this overemphasis really mean, and what serviceable part does
it play in social organization? And here it is easy to see that, since mother-
hood is biologically the far more important fact, it is the paternal side
of kinship which presents the problematic facet of the case. Interesting
customs such as the couvade, psychological problems such as relate to the
ignorance of fatherhood and its social consequences, are among the prob-
lems which must also be functionally solved. And, once we embark upon
questions of filiation and the counting of kinship, we are faced directly
by the whole complex of problems concerning derived kinship, that is,
the contribution of clans and moieties to the cohesion of society; the
function of collective solidarity; the function of exogamy and of group-
reciprocity.

These are the pieces of our puzzle and on the whole most of them
seem so disconnected, so ill-fitting, that the natural reaction of the ex-
plaining mind was to cut them up into proper shapes and regard them
either as stages or as fragments of compound cultures, trait-complexes
or Kultur Kreise.^ To the functionalist, however, the relatedness of the
various aspects and institutions is the most important characteristic of
culture, and here the universal coexistence, the dovetailing, the obvious
many-sidedness of kinship, make us see in all the facts of sexuality, mar-
riage, family and clanship one integral institution: the Procreative Institu-
tion of mankind.

What is the main function of this big institution? The obvious answer
is — the propagation of the species, but it is easy to see that the continuity
of culture is as deeply involved in kinship as is the continuity of the
race. Let us start with the biological fact, since that is the more tangible
and definite. What is the procreative unit in human society? The answer
is so obvious, the fact that one male must be married to one female in
order to produce offspring is so patent, that the answer that it is the

^The anthropological reader of this essay will have noticed that the contributions of
the so-called Historical or Diffusionist school have received but small attention in my
argument. As a matter of fact they have been almost insignificant, both in quantity and
in quality. The treatment of the family and kinship by the American school is sound,
but it is not historical, it is comparative, I should almost say functional. Here belong
the contributions of Lowie, Goldenw^eiser, [Edward Winslow] Giflord, Kroeber, [Clark]
Wissler and Dorsey and the few but sound remarks scattered through the writings of
E. Sapir. [Fritz] Graebner's and Schmidt's method of regarding father-right and mother-
right, clanship and the individual family as independent cultural traits belongs, on the
other hand, to the type of cultural surgery which is incompatible with the functional
treatment of human institutions. Fortunately Schmidt and Koppers are inconsistent, and
in their last big work {Der Mensch aller Zeiten), following E. Grosse, they treat the
elements of kinship as organically connected parts of a bigger unit, and even try to
correlate them with economic, environmental and political factors.

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

human family, consisting of mother, father and child which is the pro-
creative unit, appears at first sight an unnecessary truism.

It may come as a shock therefore to the man in the street when he is
told that it is really round this question that most learned anthropological
discussions center and that, even now, there is a profound disagreement
in the views held. Thus in the latest voluminous discussion on the ques-
tion we are told that "the clan like the family is a reproductive group
and not a political organization," and again, "We must dismiss entirely
from our minds the notion that, while the patriarchal family is a sexual
group depending upon certain intimate relations, reproductive and eco-
nomic, the clan is a group resting upon some other principle; that while
the one is a reproductive group, the other is a social or political organiza-
tion." ^ Obviously these statements are paradoxically worded, for the
author patently does not intend us to assume, what in fact he actually
says, that under the clan system group babies are conceived in collective
copulation and brought forth out of a communal womb in an act of
joint parturition. Whatever might be the similarity between the clan and
the family, the sexual relations as well as the reproductive conditions
within the clan are carried out by single pairs.

The only way in which we can plausibly interpret the above conten-
tion is that the author does not really dispute the fact that biological
procreation happens in pairs, but merely discounts the validity of this
biological fact as regards ties of kinship and social relationship. He regards,
in other words, zoology as not relevant for social organization. It would
be possible to imagine that since human instincts are almost indefinitely
plastic, the communally constructed clan can completely replace the
biologically constructed family. Though the child is produced by one
man and woman only, if this child were brought immediately under the
control of a group of fathers and mothers, the early influences which
shape its kinship ideas and kinship theories would be collective and not
individual.

If we thus reformulate Mr. Briffault's extravagant statement it opens
before us the real problem of kinship.^ The statement becomes reasonable.
But of course this does not mean that it is true.

* R. BrifTault, The Mothers, Vol. 1, pp. xvi, 591.

^This indeed is the way in which it has been framed by Rivers: "A child born into
a community with moieties or clans becomes a member of a domestic group other than
the family in the strict sense." (Social Organization, p. 55.) This point of view has also
been expressed by the same author in his hypothesis of group-motherhood (op. cit.,
p. 192 sqq.) and in his whole conception that in the early stages of development of
society the clan filled that place in social organization which the family occupied after-
wards. (See, e.g., History of Melanesian Society, pp. 6-15; Kinship and Social Organiza-
tion, p. 75; article s.v. "Kinship" in Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.)

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

We have thus to open the question of what the initial situation of kin-
ship really is. Is the child actually born into the clan or into the family;
is it brought directly under the influence of groups or of individuals?
Are there such things as "group-motherhood" or "group-fatherhood" or
have we always only individual mothers and fathers, and that not only
in the biological, but also in the cultural and social sense of the words?

In laying down the study of the Initial Situation of Kinship as the
capital problem of kinship, in demanding the exact analysis of the socio-
logical configuration of the earliest experiences, we are doing, somewhat
tardily, for social anthropology what psychology has been doing for the
study of the mental development of the individual in general; nor is it
only psychoanalysis which forces us back to the cradle in order to study
the formation of complexes and the charging of the Unconscious with
most of its subsequent drives! Behaviorism, in showing that it is the con-
ditioning of reflexes or, as I should prefer to say, the moulding of innate
dispositions, which matters most, is also leading us back to the study of
the period when this moulding takes place on the largest scale. Above all,
the most important contribution to modern psychology and social sci-
ence, the Theory of Sentiments propounded by Shand and McDougall,
demands that all human values, attitudes and personal bonds should be
studied along the line of development, with special consideration of the
earliest periods.

The concept of the Initial Situation of Kinship, which I first introduced
in my article on "Kinship" in the 14th Edition of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, places the emphasis on the study of the first stages of kinship
sentiments. And, indeed, if the study of any and all human sentiments
must be done along the life history of the individual, in a biographical
treatment so to speak, this must be done in the case of kinship above all
things. Because in kinship the most typical and the fundamental process
is that in which biological facts are transformed into social forces, and
unless this be understood well, the whole question is placed on a false
foundation and we get the chaos of controversy with which we are faced
at present.

It is hardly necessary, perhaps, to add that in laying down the prob-
lem of the Initial Situation we are doing more than merely introducing a
concept and a terminological entity. In doing this we are really opening
a number of definitely empirical questions referring to the cultural trans-
formation of the biological elements, sex, maternity and fatherhood; we
are focussing our argument on the linking-up of courtship, marriage and
kinship; last, but not least, we are demanding a clear answer to the ques-
tion as to the relation between procreation, domesticity, and the legal or
political aspects of kinship.

Let us then proceed to the analysis of the Initial Situation of Kinship

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

and try, through a comparative survey along the widest range of varia-
tions, to see whether some general principles can be established with
reference to it.

Maternity is the most dramatic and spectacular as well as the most
obvious fact in the propagation of species. A woman, whether in Mayfair
or on a coral island of the Pacific, has to undergo a period of hardship
and discomfort; she has to pass through a crisis of pain and danger, she
has, in fact, to risk her own life in order to give life to another human
being. Her connection with the child, who remains for a long time part
of her own body, is intimate and integral. It is associated with physio-
logical effects and strong emotions, it culminates in the crisis of birth,
and it extends naturally into lactation.

Now what is it that the advocates of "group-motherhood" want us to
believe? Neither more nor less than that, with birth, the individual link
is severed and becomes merged in an imaginary bond of "collective
motherhood." They afiirm that such powerful sociological forces are at
work, such strong cultural influences, that they can override and destroy
the individual attitude of mother-to-child. Is this true? Do we really find
any sociological mechanisms which succeed in severing the mother-child
relationship, dumping each into the group of collective mothers and col-
lective children? As a matter of fact all these hypotheses are pure fig-
ments and, looking at facts as we did through the eyes of our imaginary
observer, we were led to the conclusion that maternity is as individual
culturally as it is biologically. The point is of such capital importance,
however, that we must look more in detail at the arguments by which
individual maternity has been challenged by such writers as Rivers and
Briffault.

They have alleged that communal suckling, the frequent and indis-
criminate adoption or exchange of infants, joint cares and joint responsi-
bilities, and a sort of joint ownership of children create an identical bond
between the one child and several mothers, which would obviously mean
that every mother would have also a group of joint children. In these
views there is also implied the assumption that conception, pregnancy
and childbirth, which obviously are individual and not communal, are
completely ignored by society as irrelevant factors, and that they play no
part in the development of maternal sentiments.

Let us examine the implication of the group-motherhood hypothesis
first, and then decide whether a communal game of share and exchange
in children and infants is, or ever could have been, played.

Now, in the first place, it is a universal fact that conception, preg-
nancy, childbirth and suckling are sociologically determined; that they
are subjects of ritual, or religious and moral conceptions, of legal obliga-
tions and privileges. There is not one single instance on record of a

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

primitive culture in which the process of gestation is left to nature alone.
Conception, as a rule, is believed to be due as much to spiritual as to
physiological causes. Conception, moreover, is not a process which is al-
lowed to take its natural course as a result of prenuptial intercourse. Be-
tween the freedom of sexual life and the freedom of becoming a mother
a sharp distinction is drawn in all human societies including our own,
and this is one of the most important sociological factors of the prob-
lem and to it we shall presently return.

Most important of all, a legitimate, socially approved of, conception
must always be based on an individual legal contract — the contract of
marriage.^

Once conception has taken place the prospective mother has always to
keep taboos and observe ceremonial rules. She has to abstain from certain
foods and carry out lustrations; she has to undergo more or less compli-
cated pregnancy ceremonies; she has to wear special decorations and
clothes; she is regarded sometimes as holy, sometimes as unclean; last, not
least, she is very often sexually tabooed even to her own husband. All
these ceremonial, moral and legal rules are, by the very nature of the
facts, individual. Their motive is invariably the welfare of the future
offspring. Most of them establish individual ties between the prospective
mother and her future offspring. Maternity is thus determined in anticipa-
tion by a whole cultural apparatus of rules and prescriptions, it is estab-
lished by society as a moral fact, and, in all this, the tie of kinship between
mother and child is defined by tradition long before birth, and defined as
an individual bond.

At the crisis itself, that is at birth, the ceremonies of purification, the
idea of special dangers which unite mother and child and separate them
from the rest of the community, customs and usages connected with mid-
wifery and early lactation — this whole cultural apparatus continues to
reaffirm and to reshape the bond of maternity, and to individualize it
with force and clearness. These anticipatory moral influences always put
the responsibility upon one woman and mark her out as the sociological
or cultural mother over and above her physiological claims to that title.

All this might appear to refer only to the mother. What about the
child? We can indeed completely discount Freud's assumption that there
is an innate bond of sexual attraction between mother and child; we must
reject further his whole hypothesis of "the return to the womb." With
all this we have to credit psychoanalysis with having proved that the
earliest infantile experiences, provided that they are not completely broken
and obliterated in childhood, form a foundation of the greatest im-

®In order to avoid possible misunderstandings I should like to remind the reader that
plural marriages such as polygyny and polyandry are always based on an individual legal
contract betw^een one man and one woman, though these contracts may be repeated.

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

portance for the later individual relationship between the child and its
mother.

Now here again, the continuity between prenatal cares, the earliest
infantile seclusion of mother and child, and the period of lactation, which
in native society is much longer than with us, the continuity of all these
experiences and their individual unity is in primitive societies as great as,
if not greater than, with us.

And this is the point at which we have to deal with the unprofitable
assumption of communal lactation. In the relatively small savage com-
munities where there occur perhaps one or two childbirths in a year within
reach of each other the idea of mothers synchronizing conception and
pregnancy and clubbing together to carry out lactatory group-motherhood,
at the greatest inconvenience to themselves, the babies and the whole
community, is so preposterous that even now I cannot think how it could
ever have been promulgated by Dr. Rivers and upheld by Mr. Briffault.

As to a "communalizing" adoption, in the first place, even where it is
most frequent, as in certain Polynesian and Melanesian communities, it
simply substitutes one maternity for another. It proves undoubtedly that
cultural parenthood can override the biological basis, but it does not
introduce anything even remotely like group-maternity. In fact the sever-
ance of one bond before another is established is a further proof of the
individuality and exclusiveness of motherhood. In the second place the
custom of indiscriminate adoption is prevalent among a few savage so-
cieties only.

We can thus say that motherhood is always individual. It is never
allowed to remain a mere biological fact. Social and cultural influences
always indorse and emphasize the original individuality of the biological
fact. These influences are so strong that in the case of adoption they may
override the biological tie and substitute a cultural one for it. But statisti-
cally speaking, the biological ties are almost invariably merely reinforced,
redetermined and remoulded by the cultural ones. This remoulding makes
motherhood in each culture a relationship specific to that culture, dififerent
from all other motherhoods, and correlated to the whole social structure
of the community. This means that the problem of maternity cannot be
dismissed as a zoological fact, that it should be studied by every field-
worker in his own area, and that the theory of cultural motherhood should
have been made the foundation of the general theory of kinship.

What about the father? As far as his biological role is concerned he
might well be treated as a drone. His task is to impregnate the female
and then to disappear. And yet in all human societies the father is regarded
by tradition as indispensable. The woman has to be married before she is
allowed legitimately to conceive. Roughly speaking, an unmarried mother
is under a ban, a fatherless child is a bastard. This is by no means only a

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

European or Christian prejudice; it is the attitude found amongst most
barbarous and savage peoples as well. Where the unmarried mother is at
a premium and her offspring a desirable possession, the father is forced
upon them by positive instead of negative sanctions.

Let us put it in more precise and abstract terms. Among the conditions
which define conception as a sociologically legitimate fact there is one of
fundamental importance. The most important moral and legal rule con-
cerning the physiological side of kinship is that no child should be brought
into the world without a man — and one man at that — assuming the role of
sociological father, that is, guardian and protector, the male link between
the child and the rest of the community.

I think that this generalization amounts to a universal sociological law
and as such I have called it in some of my previous writings the principle
of legitimacy^ The form which the principle of legitimacy assumes varies
according to the laxity or stringency which obtains regarding prenuptial
intercourse; according to the value set upon virginity or the contempt for
it; according to the ideas held by the natives as to the mechanism of pro-
creation; above all, according as to whether the child is a burden or an
asset to its parents. Which means according as to whether the unmarried
mother is more attractive because of her oflFspring or else degraded and
ostracized on that account.

Yet through all these variations there runs the rule that the father is
indispensable for the full sociological status of the child as well as of its
mother, that the group consisting of a woman and her offspring is socio-
logically incomplete and illegitimate. The father, in other words, is neces-
sary for the full legal status of the family.

In order to understand the nature and importance of the principle of
legitimacy it is necessary to discuss the two aspects of procreation which
are linked together biologically and culturally, yet linked by nature and
culture so differently that many difficulties and puzzles have arisen for the
anthropologist. Sex and parenthood are obviously linked biologically.
Sexual intercourse leads at times to conception. Conception always means
pregnancy and pregnancy at times means childbirth. We see that in the
chain there are at least two possibilities of a hiatus; sexual intercourse by
no means always leads to conception, and pregnancy can be interrupted by
abortion and thus not lead to childbirth.

The moral, customary and legal rules of most human communities step
in, taking advantage of the two weak links in the chain, and in a most
remarkable manner dissociate the two sides of procreation, that is sex and
parenthood. Broadly speaking, it may be said that freedom of intercourse

''Compare article s.v. "Kinship" in the Encydopcedia Britannica, 14th Edition [Chapt.
6 of Sex, Culture, and Myth]; also Sex and Repression in Savage Society (1927) and
Chapter VI of The Family among the Australian Aborigines (1913). In this latter the
relevant facts are presented though the term is not used.

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

though not universally is yet generally prevalent in human societies.
Freedom of conception outside marriage is, however, never allowed, or at
least in extremely few communities and under very exceptional circum-
stances.

Briefly to substantiate this statement: it is clear that in those societies,
primitive or civilized, where prenuptial intercourse is regarded as immoral
and illegitimate, marriage is the conditio sine qua non of legitimate
children — that is children having full social status in the community.

In the second place, in most communities which regard prenuptial inter-
course as perfectly legitimate, marriage is still regarded as essential to equip
the child with a full tribal position. This is very often achieved without
any punitive sanctions, by the mere fact that as soon as pregnancy sets in
a girl and her lover have to marry. Often in fact pregnancy is a pre-
requisite of marriage or the final legal symptom of its conclusion.

There are tribes, again, where an unmarried mother is definitely penal-
ized and so are her children. What is done under such conditions by lovers
who want to live together sexually and yet not to produce children is diffi-
cult to say. Having had in my own field-work to deal with the case in
point, I was yet unable to arrive at a satisfactory solution. Contraceptives,
I am firmly convinced, do not exist in Melanesia, and abortion is not suffi-
ciently frequent to account for the great scarcity of illegitimate children.
As a hypothesis, I venture to submit that promiscuous intercourse, while it
lasts, reduces the fertility of woman. If this side of the whole question still
remains a puzzle it only proves that more research, both physiological and
sociological, must be done in order fully to throw light upon the principle
of legitimacy.

There is still one type of social mechanism through which the principle
of legitimacy operates, and that is under conditions where a child is an
asset. There an unmarried mother need not trouble about her sociological
status, because the fact of having children only makes her the more de-
sirable, and she speedily acquires a husband. He will not trouble whether
the child is the result of his love-making or not. But whether the male is
primed to assume his paternity, or whether child and mother are penalized,
the principle of legitimacy obtains throughout mankind; the group of
mother and child is incomplete and the sociological position of the father
is regarded universally as indispensable.

Liberty of parenthood, therefore, is not identical with liberty of sexual
intercourse. And the principle of legitimacy leads us to another very
important generalization, namely, that the relations of sexuality to parent-
hood must be studied with reference to the only relevant link: marriage,
conceived as a contract legitimizing offspring.

From the foregoing considerations, it is clear that marriage cannot be

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

defined as the licensing of sexual intercourse, but rather as the licensing
of parenthood.

Since marriage is the institution through which the inchoate, at times
even disruptive, drives of sex are transformed and organized into the
principal system of social forces, it is clear that sexuality must be discussed,
defined and classified in relation to marriage. From our point of view we
have to inquire as to what is its function in relation to marriage.

We have first to inquire, is chartered and limited sexual liberty sub-
versive and destructive of marriage and family; does it ever run counter
to these institutions? Or, on the contrary, is regulated and limited inter-
course outside matrimony one of those cultural arrangements which allow
of a greater stability of marriage and the family, of easier adjustment
within it, and of a more suitable choice of partner?

It is obvious that once we erect chastity as a positive ideal, once we
accept the Christian principle of monogamous marriage as the only decent
way of regarding this institution, we have prejudged all these questions
and stultified the whole inquiry. And it is astounding how even those who
attack the institutions of Christian morality and marriage and regard
themselves as absolutely free of preconceptions, still remain under the in-
fluence of the ideal or at least of its pretenses. Thus all sociologists, from
Bachofen to Briffault, were inclined to regard communistic orgies, relaxa-
tions of the marital tie, forms of prenuptial freedom, as "survivals," as
traces of a primeval sexual communism. That, I think, is an entirely v/rong
view, due to an involuntary tendency to regard sexual intercourse outside
marriage as something anomalous, as something which contravenes mar-
riage; a view directly implied in our Christian ideal of monogamy.

Let us look at facts in the correct perspective; see, that is, how sexuality
is related to marriage in various primitive communities. Let us first
classify the various types of regulation in relation to marriage. Those com-
munities where virginity is a prerequisite of decent and legal marriage,
where it is enforced by such surgical operations as infibulation; where
wives are jealously guarded and adultery is a rigorously punished offense —
those communities present no problem to us. There sex is as absolutely sub-
ordinated to marriage as in the Christian monogamous ideal, and far more
so than in our Western practice. But such communities are comparatively
rare, especially at a primitive level, and generally we find some form of
customary license outside marriage.

Here again we must distinguish with direct reference to marriage, which
really means to parenthood. Prenuptial license, that is, the liberty of free
intercourse given to unmarried youths and girls, is by far the most prev-
alent form of chartered freedom, as well as the most important. What is
its normal course and how is it related to marriage? Does it as a rule
develop habits of profligacy; does it lead to a more and more promiscuous
attitude?

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

Even a study of those forms which are nearest to us and should be best
known — that is, the prenuptial usages of European peasants — should have
furnished the clue to the comparative anthropologist. The German peasant
speaks of "trial nights"; he justifies his institution of Fensterln (window-
ing, i.e., entering through the window) by the commonsense axiom that
unless he has full sexual experience of his future bride he is unable to make
a sound empirical choice. The same view is taken by the savage Melanesian,
by the West African, by the Bantu, and by the North American Indian;
last, but not least, by some of the new generation — young intellectuals.
We have, therefore, in prenuptial license, in the first place, an institu-
tionalized method of arranging marriage by trial and error.

And this is by no means a mere pretense, though often the desire for
trial leads to errors. In fact, however, the general course of prenuptial
intrigue conforms naturally to the pattern of the principle. The number
of intrigues does not increase, the appetite for change and variety does not
grow with experience. On the contrary, with age and a ripening insight
into the nature of sexual relations, two definite phenomena occur. On the
one hand the character of the intrigues changes: they become stronger and
deeper. New elements enter into them; the appreciation of personaUty and
the integration of erotic attraction with the spiritual character of the
lover. On the other hand, and correlated with the first process, we find
that the mere attraction of sexual experiences loses a great deal of its
charm.

We see, therefore, that if we look at prenuptial sexuality in a dispas-
sionate sociological spirit, and if we contemplate it in its relation to mar-
riage, we find that it fulfils two functions. It serves as an empirical
foundation to a mature, more spiritual choice of a mate, and it serves to
drain off the cruder sexual motives from affection and attraction. It is
thus, on the one hand, the sowing of wild oats, on the other a trial-and-
error method of concluding marriage.

If we look at the relaxations of the matrimonial bond we see that they
fulfil a not altogether dissimilar function. There is the temporary exchange
of wives. We find it in wife-lending at tribal feasts or during the occur-
rence of catastrophes; in the institution of pirrauru in Central Australia;
in the prolonged wife-lending among the Eskimos or in Siberia. Such
customs simply mean that from time to time a man and a woman already
married are allowed to have sexual experiences with other people.

Sexual, let us keep in mind, is not synonymous with conjugal, though
the polite parlance of puritanic hypocrisy has made it so. Temporary co-
habitation, above all, never implies community of children. Its function
consists, in the first place, in that it once more satisfies in an approved,
licensed way the desire for change which is inherent in the sexual impulse.
In the second place it sometimes leads to the discovery that the new,
temporary partnership is more suitable, and so, through divorce, it leads

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

to a marriage on the whole more satisfactory. Here, again, postmarital
extra-connubial sexuality is an arrangement both of trial and error, and
also a safety vent. The first function is more prominent in the standardized
forms of wife-lending for more prolonged periods; the second, in the
occasions of orgiastic license at big tribal festivals, where often many of
the usual bonds and restrictions are suspended.

We see, then, that the regulated forms of nonconjugal intercourse, far
from being adverse to, and subversive of marriage, are its adjuncts and
adjuvants. They allow a greater selectiveness; a selectiveness in which
compatibility is established as well as cruder sexuality eliminated. They
allow, therefore, of the conclusion of marriages based on an affinity of
character combined with sexual compatibility. They eliminate, also, from
the institution of marriage the disruptive forces of sex which come
from unsatisfied intercourse, monotonous and one-sided satisfaction. They
counterbalance, therefore, the repressive forces of the strict matrimonial
discipline of sex.

For it is important to realize clearly that in savage societies sexual
repression is as rigid and definite as sexual license is clear and prescriptive.
The savage is by no means untrammeled sexually. The difference between
civilized and savage codes lies, in fact, in a greater definiteness of the
latter — though even here I would not like to be dogmatic. At any rate,
in a community where, by rules of exogamy, one-half, or at least a con-
siderable number, of all the women are not lawful as wives or lovers;
where the taboos of occupation, of status, of family and of special oc-
casions considerably restrict the opportunities of intercourse; in communi-
ties where there exists the severest code of conduct in public and private,
imposed upon husband and wife, brother and sister, and people standing
in definite kinship relations — in such communities it is clear that repression
acts with at least as great a force as with us. And this means that the
forces of reaction against the trammels and restraints imposed by society
are very powerful. Thus sex, throughout humanity, is regulated; there
are restrictions as well as liberties and the institutions which allow of the
latter can only be understood in their function when we refer them to the
fundamental procreative institutions — those of the family and marriage.

We see, therefore, that parenthood and marriage furnish the key to the
functional understanding of regulated sexuaUty. We see that sexual regu-
lations, the liberties and the taboos, constitute the road to marriage and the
way of escape from its too rigid bonds and consequent tragic complica-
tions. The sexual impulse has to be selective in human as well as in animal
communities, but its selectiveness under culture is more complicated in
that it has to involve cultural as well as biological values. Trial and error
are necessary and with this is definitely connected the interest in varia-
tion and impulse towards novelty. To satisfy the fundamental function
of sex we have the institution which makes full sex, that is parenthood.

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

exclusive and individual. To satisfy the correlated selective components of
sex, we have the dependent institutions of regulated license. To sum up,
we have found that parenthood gives us the key to marriage, through the
principle of legitimacy, and that marriage is the key to a right understand-
ing of sexual customs. It may be added at once that the dissociation of
some sexual experiences from the primitive idea of marriage, coupled with
the real interrelation of the two, yields to the sociologist an interesting
background for the consideration of modern problems of sexuality, mar-
riage and divorce.

The principle of legitimacy has led us to the consideration of sex in its
relation to marriage, and brought us to the functional definition of sexual
excesses as component parts of the integral procreative institution. All this
hinges, of course, on the fact that sex leads to conception, but that since
sex and conception are not absolutely linked together, they can be cul-
turally dissociated in more than one way. The whole question possesses,
however, one aspect which is of the greatest sociological importance and
upon which we have barely touched so far. This is the native theory of
procreation and the sociological consequences of this theory.

In the first place the degree of knowledge about the physiology of
procreation varies considerably from one culture to another, as we saw
with the help of our imaginary observer. From an almost absolute igno-
rance of physiological paternity we pass to an extreme overemphasis of the
part played by the semen in procreation; from highly complicated animis-
tic theories as to what happens when the new being is prepared in the
spiritual world for the present one, to an almost complete unconcern with
the whence of human life; from a great sociological influence of those
ideas to a complete disconnection.

Theories vary, legal ideas are more or less linked up with the dogmatic
views, but, as subject matter, all these facts are to the functional anthro-
pologist of paramount importance. The views about procreation may or
may not be a relevant social force. Where they are, they show the extreme
importance of mythological and animistic foundations in a legal system.
The modern anthropologist has once more to claim the functional study
of such beliefs as against their treatment in the light of mere curiosity.
In my investigations of the matrilineal system in the Trobriand Islands,
I found that the whole doctrine of matrilineal identity in kinship is based
on the natives' theory of procreation. I found also that the important
sociological part played by the father is based on certain secondary, deriva-
tive views as to paternal influence upon the offspring in its embryonic
state. (Compare The Sexual Life of Savages, Chap. VII.)

The whole theory of paternity, its dependence upon a direct physiological
bond between father and child or merely upon the bond indirectly estab-
lished between father and offspring through marriage — this theory should

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

be studied in functional connection with the various taboos, ritual ob-
servances, ceremonial, magical, economic and legal acts performed by the
father at conception, during pregnancy and at childbirth. The famous
custom of the couvade will naturally occur to every reader in this connec-
tion; the custom, that is, in which the husband mimics the pangs and
vicissitudes of childbirth. But the couvade, if we place it in its setting of
cognate phenomena, is but one of a whole series of customs which shows
that the father has a number of legal and magical obligations to fulfil,
and that, in performing them, he works for the welfare of his offspring
and his wife. In other words, from the functional point of view, all those
customs which we might label as belonging to the couvade type are an
exact parallel to those which establish cultural maternity.

"We see thus that individual paternity, as well as individual maternity,
is established by a whole series of customs and rites; that, although
maternity is the more important biological fact, both parents are connected
with the child through a culturally determined relationship. This cultural
relationship, however, is not artificial, in the sense that it should be inde-
pendent of natural inclination. The traditional usages, the taboos, the
magical rites, which in an anticipatory manner secure the welfare of the
child, express the natural emotions of both parents. Wherever observations
on the subjective side of the question have been made, it has been found
that both prospective parents love their offspring in anticipation, that they
are interested in it from the moment of its birth, that they bestow on it
the tenderest cares and most lavish affection during infancy.

For the child is linked to both its parents by the unity of the household
and by the intimacy of daily contacts. In most communities both parents
have to look after it, to nurse it and to tend it. The father may, in extreme
matriarchal communities, be legally the guest and the stranger in his wife's
house; he may be regarded as being of an entirely different bodily sub-
stance from his child; yet he loves it and looks after it almost as tenderly
as the mother does.

Thus the initial situation of kinship, both culturally and biologically,
consists in individual parenthood based on marriage. Parenthood, in human
societies, is not merely a biological fact, but it is just in its cultural defini-
tion that we find the greatest emphasis on the individual relationship, that
is, on individual paternity and maternity. We have answered thus the
problem and, in answering it, we have shown that we have not merely
introduced a new term — initial situation — but that this has led us to
the discovery of the principle of legitimacy, to a new treatment of sex-
uality in reference to marriage, and to the investigation of native theories
of procreation as related to social organization and legal systems.

With the conclusion that parenthood, as determined by cultural as well
as by biological forces, constitutes the Initial Situation of Kinship, we

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

have laid our foundation but we have not completed our task. The
importance of the initial situation consists in its influence, in its controlling
power over the later life of the individual and upon the formation of the
wider social ties. It is in the relation of parenthood to the other forms of
social grouping that the real problem of kinship consists.

Modern psychologists agree that parenthood, as the dominant influence
of infancy, forms the character of the individual and at the same time
shapes his social attitudes, and thus places its imprint upon the constitution
of the whole society. But to show how this actually happens is really a
sociological task.

The Social Anthropologist who studies the formation of primitive kin-
ship ties must follow parenthood to its furthest ramifications. He must
show the weanings, the extensions, the ebbing and strengthening of the
ties. He must establish the final triumph of parenthood as the only stable
force working right throughout life, as the pattern of most relations, as
the foundation on which even the religious cults and dogmatic conceptions
of a community are based.

The human family is not merely a procreative institution. The earliest
cares gradually but surely shade into the training of the child's own
impulses. From this early training in such elementary matters as cleanli-
ness, safety, the use of its limbs, voice, etc., education proceeds to the
teaching of manual craftsmanship, and later again, the imparting of
tradition and social rules.

The initial situation, based on physiological facts and innate impulses,
thus gradually ripens into cultural education. The mother is an invariable
agent in all this: the father usually stands by her as an almost equivalent
helpmate, though at times his role is much less significant. The most
burdensome form of human codperation, the training of the young by the
old, is bound up with the tenderness and affection which comes from
maternity and which seems somewhat mysteriously associated with father-
hood.^

The training of body and mind, the transmission of standardized be-
havior and moral ideals in skill, knowledge and values, must go hand in
hand with the transmission of material goods. To teach craft you have to
provide the tools, to instruct in magic you have to part with your secret
formulae and procedures. To impart your family tradition and the privi-
leges of your status you have to transmit rank, position, even social

® The innate tenderness of the father seems to me to be derived from his social role
of guardian of the woman during her pregnancy, rather than from some mysterious
instinct which would allow a man to identify a child produced by his semen. Compare
my Sex and Repression in Savage Society, p. 214; The Sexual Life of Savages, Chap. VII.
Compare also Bertrand Russell's Marriage and Morals, where this point of view has been
adopted.

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

identity. In this last case, unless you transmit social status, the passing on
of its traditional definition is worthless.

Thus education, sooner or later, leads to the handing over of material
possessions, of social privileges, of a great part of one's moral identity.
And here the first break occurs in the simple direct growth of the family
relationships. In some societies the father has to step back when it comes
to the most important moral and sociological education, he has to let his
wife's brother instruct his children and hand over to them what might be
called "social continuity." The father is, in such cases, never completely
replaced by the mother's brother. He is still the head of the household, but
an important duality begins in the allegiance and in the social duties and
obligations of the child.

In societies where kinship is counted through the father the distortion
is less obvious, at least to European eyes. But, on the one hand, in some
societies on a primitive level, the father's sister very often assumes an
important place as a female counterpart of the father, and on the other
hand, in all such societies, the relation to maternal relatives becomes ir-
relevant and there is a one-sided overemphasis of the father's line. Most
important of all, the father, in pronouncedly patriarchal communities,
changes his role. From the tender and often indulgent parent, which
he was to the small child, he becomes the autocrat of the household,
the wielder of the patria potestas, and often at times a tyrant, while the
mother's brother acts as the friend and tender male helpmate of the
children.

Thus, while the early cares and physiological dependence on parenthood
lead to education and this again to the transmission of social identity,
privileges and possessions, a serious shock occurs at this stage of the simple
process. And, indeed, it is usually a shock even in the manner in which it
is carried out. At times children are forcibly removed from their home and
brought to that of their grandparents, as among the Southern Bantu, or
placed in special bachelor houses or men's club houses or sent to another
village. Or again, while they live at home, they may have to carry on
certain more or less easy tasks under a new authority, that of the village
headman or totemic chief, and submit to a new routine, if not discipline.
The typical form, however, in which the severance of the child from the
home and the impression of new kinship ideas takes place, are the initia-
tion ceremonies. There, passing through ordeals, seclusion and privations,
the child is weaned from home, from the influence above all of the mother,
and instructed in clan mythology and clan morality. At the same time he
forms new bonds, finds himself a member of an Age Grade or other male
j organization, but above all, when there is a clan, he is taught the solidarity
and unity of this group, of which he is now a full member. Later in life,
j it may be added, marriage constitutes a violent wrench in the whole kin-
ship outlook of both sexes, though more so in the case of a girl.

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

With all this the family bonds are never completely destroyed: they are
only profoundly modified and overlaid by other associations. For the series
of shocks by which the bilateral family kinship becomes transformed into
wider classificatory ties is associated with another series of what might
be called reconstructive processes.

When weaning, which takes place late in life in primitive societies, is
over, the child, who may have been sent away from home or during the
process forcibly kept from contact with the mother, returns to her, and,
though weaned, continues to be dependent on her for food. Again at
initiation the mother may be directly reviled and discredited to the son.
He may even be permanently kept from home after the ceremonies are
over. This profoundly modifies his relation to the mother, to the home and
to his whole early kinship horizon. And yet, he maintains close, strongly
emotional, though perhaps surreptitious, relations with his mother; his
old home remains the only family circle to which he belongs and to which
he frequently returns; probably he still feeds at home or is sent food from
home. Again, when, under mother-right, the maternal uncle replaces the
father as regards authority and influence, the paternal relationship is deeply
changed. Yet the father becomes often even more of a friend, a private
adviser and a real helper; and very often a whole body of usages grows
up which compensate to a large extent for the loss of authority. At
marriage the man or woman enters, or rather creates a new household,
but both the old households still remain homes to husband and wife. As
grandparents' homes they are open to their offspring. Even at death the
parental tie is not broken, as we already know.

Thus the primary bonds of parenthood grow and mature and retain to
the last some of the original pattern. We might almost call this growth
of bilateral ties natural because it continues in direct pursuance of physio-
logical facts, because it is based on the emotional readiness of the parents
to help their children and on the correlated response of children to parents.

But parenthood asserts itself in yet a different manner. The configura-
tion of the child's own household, as it consists of his father and mother,
of his brothers and sisters, is repeated all around him. As soon as or even
before he has become an active and effective member of his household, he
is received into the households of his grandparents, of the brothers and
sisters of his parents. He thus forms new ties in virtue of his relationship
to father and mother and very much on the same pattern as his own family
ties are formed. The household is thus the workshop, so to speak, where
kinship ties are built.

The formation of the new ties, in the sense in which we are speaking
now, is essentially individual. Thus, one of the nearest relatives outside the
own household is invariably the mother's sister. This woman often assists at
childbirth, helps the mother during the first few days when the infant
needs most care and attendance, often visits the household, in case of the

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

mother's illness takes charge of the child. She is in short an assistant
mother, or substitute mother. In matrilineal communities she would be
the person who, legally, would replace the mother in the case of her death
or inability to look after the child. In patrilineal societies this part might
be played by the wife of the father's brother, very rarely only by the
father's sister. But in any case the nearest relatives of both mother and
father are, to the child, secondary parents.

It must be remembered that in primitive societies any form of what
might be called ''social insurance" — that is, organized assistance and re-
placement in case of death or misadventure, such as we have in the
charitable and benevolent institutions of civilized communities — can only
be done directly and personally. We see, accordingly, in primitive societies,
an extraordinary development of what might be termed the substitution
by kinship and a definite system of vicarious duties and responsibilities
devolving on the nearest of kin. This principle of substitution is clearly
seen in the way in which the children are trained to regard the mother's
sister as a substitute mother and to call her by the same term which they
apply to the mother.

The father's brother is likewise called father, his wife, mother; the
children of the mother's sister and of the father's brother usually are
named by the same terms as the own siblings. If we study primitive kin-
ship terminologies, not as ready-made products but in the process of
formation along the life history of the individual, we find that the essence
of so-called classificatory kinship consists in gradual extensions on the basis
of vicarious substitution. The substitute mother or father is, in certain
respects, equivalent to the real one. He or she appears in the intimacy of
the household, side by side with the real parent; he or she renders to the
child services similar to those of the real parent, at times replacing the real
parent and acting as the substitute. The salient facts of this process are
that the substitute parent resembles in certain respects the original one
and that the naming expresses this partial assimilation.

To sum up: as the individual grows up the process of direct extension
of kinship ties surrounds him with other households, related to him
through his parents and constituting what might be called the neighbor-
hood of kindred. Sometimes this neighborhood of kindred is directly on
the territorial basis and coincides with the local grouping of households,
at other times the kindred are scattered over a wide area.

We have just followed the development of the parental ties in the later
life of the individual. Let us now see how the processes of development
which we have studied affect the family. Here an interesting generalization
arises directly out of the survey of facts: the development of parenthood
into kinship is by no means a simple process or even one process. It shows
a manifoldness in which, however, two main aspects are visible. We have

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

on the one hand the consolidation and later the transformation of the
family group and on the other the clan. Let us once more turn to these
two institutions.

In our account of the imaginary observer's career we showed that the
family would appear "so obvious" to him that he might be in serious
danger of overlooking it. The clan, on the other hand, is so unexpected
and recondite that he might equally well miss seeing it. But once having
noticed it, he would see in it that strange, powerful and obtrusive institu-
tion, which has fascinated generations of anthropologists into ignoring
the family almost completely.

We are in a position now to discard the classical and all too facile
solution that the clan is a domestic institution. We know that among
present-day natives it never plays the part of the family, and that it is
improbable, nay, inconceivable, that the clan or any similar institution
should ever have had a domestic, still less a procreative, function.

Is the clan then merely a political or legal institution? This second
facile answer must also be discarded. The clan, connected with classi-
ficatory kinship terms, pervaded by ideas of kinship and descent from one
ancestor, is in the psychology of natives intrinsically based on concep-
tions of bodily unity. Thus, though the clan is neither a substitute for
nor equivalent of the family, it stands in some sort of intimate relation-
ship to that institution. But it is not such a general statement that we
want, but a precise answer to the question as to what type of relationship
exists between the family and the clan.^

Both the family and clanship begin at home. When a child is born it
becomes ipso facto a. member of its mother's or father's clan, and all
subsequent clan relations are derived from this fact. But the effective im-
portance of clanship at birth is nil, while that of parenthood really consti-
tutes the whole universe of the infant. We have seen that as he grows
up the influence of the clan increases. With the gradual severance from
the household, with his entry into economic coooperation, with his initia-
tion into the mythological and esoteric lore of his people, with his assump-
tion of the legal bonds of citizenship, with his growth, that is, into full
participation in the ordinary and ceremonial life of the tribe, the native

'As will be seen, the main problem of kinship in my opinion is the understanding
of extended kinship, that is clanship, in its relation to the family. I should regard a
one-sided over-emphasis of the family as almost as erroneous as that of the clan. When
my friend Mrs. B. Z. Seligman writes about . . the numerous conversations I have
had with Professor Malinowski, spread over a number of years, during which he always
spoke of the importance of the family and I defended the clan" (Journal of the Royd
Anthro. Inst., Vol. LIX, p. 234), I think that she imputes to me too exclusive an attach-
ment to the family. I should like to have earned the title Familiae Defensor, but in
reality I have for some time past been aware that the real solution lies in the right and
full appreciation of both sides of kinship — the classificatory as well as the individual.

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

becomes more and more clearly aware of the validity of the clan and his
place in it.

Again, as we have seen, parenthood gradually changes, but we know
that only very superficially does it fade away. The mother, at first the
source of all sustenance and protection, diminishes in importance at wean-
ing, at initiation, with the child's entrance into the bachelor's house or
girls' community. The father, at first the only male on the horizon, a
tender and loving parent, becomes, in a patriarchal community, primarily
the wielder of authority, while in a matrilineal, he has to give over a num-
ber of his prerogatives and services to the mother's brother.

To all appearances, then, the clan grows, the family decays. The hy-
pothesis might impose itself that the one passes into the other, so that the
family is the institution of childhood, the clan that of adult life. Even
this, however, as we know, is too simple a solution. Let us then return
to the life history of the individual.

And here we must make a short, methodological digression. The ap-
proach to the problem of kinship through the study of the development
along the life history of the individual should have been obvious. Kinship
is the most personal fact in human life and an organic fact at that. It
starts with birth, it grows and modifies as the organism matures, it passes
through several crises, above all that of marriage. Even with death its
bonds are not completely broken, for kinship is the basis of ancestor
worship and similar religious cults. Its treatment in this historical or we
might say biographical way yields the only really satisfactory solution.
And yet this simple approach has so far been neglected. The projection
of the evolutionary line of development has completely bHnded anthro-
pologists to this straightforward and simple method which alone can
yield the clue to all the puzzles and difficulties.

We have just said that on a superficial view the family fades. But
this is only partially correct, for the family lasts throughout life. The
parents who start as protectors of their children, become, in their old
age, the wards and charges of these children. At the death of an old
man or woman the children are the chief mourners, and the spirits of
previous generations communicate primarily with their own offspring.

In fact, we saw that, at first, the family, as a definite group, grows
rather than fades. The infant who at first was but a passive being tended
by its parents, as a child, takes a definite place in the household, where,
side by side with the mother and father, the group is completed by his
brothers and sisters. This growth and consolidation of the family con-
tinues until a time when it splits, so to speak, and one side of it, the
maternal or paternal, becomes overstressed, the other overruled, only to
assert itself in various covert reactions and reaffirmations.

This twofold or split growth of kinship, or rather the coexistence of
two processes, is, I beHeve, the source of most difficulties. I maintain

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

that right through Hfe there is, on the one hand, the process of growth
and constant reaffirmation of the simple bilateral family pattern. On the
other hand, and side by side with this, there is a breaking-up, connected
with a unilateral over-emphasis of the legal side of the maternal or the
paternal bond. The influence of these two processes, in a way antagonistic
to each other, can be traced in the classificatory terminologies, in legal
systems, in sexual attitudes, in what might be called "complexes," that is,
reactions of individual feeling and even of custom against the official atti-
tude prescribed by tradition.

Each process has its special mechanism. The direct growth of the
family is helped by the local grouping of households, by cooperation
within the neighborhood, by the fact that, for many purposes, the rela-
tives of both father and mother are relevant to the child. Last, but not
least, by the rules of incest which everywhere exist over and above the
rules of exogamy. The splitting and breaking up of the family on the
unilateral principle and the correlated building up of clan ties is achieved
gradually in some communities by the teaching of the rules of descent
and the introduction into tribal tradition and ritual, or dramatically in
others at initiation, by esoteric clan ceremonial and mystery perform-
ances, and by the rules of clan exogamy and classificatory terminologies
and institutions.

Thus kinship, as an integral system of personal bonds, is a complex
social phenomenon. This complexity in the growth of kinship has not
been the source of anthropological troubles only. It is also the source of
many tribal maladjustments; of the constant strife between clan solidarity
and personal allegiances, between rules of exogamy and individual prefer-
ences, between the dominance of the group and the assertion of the indi-
vidually

Marriage is a crisis and one which affects deeply all kinship relations.
Through marriage two individuals establish a new household, each of
them acquires a new body of relations, those in law, and presently they
will become the source of a new set of relationships, those of their chil-
dren to the rest of the community. But in each new household there is
repeated all that has been described before in reference to the initial
situation. There is one set of facts, however, to which some more atten-
tion must still be given, and that is the conditions of infantile sexuality
and the rules of incest.

Whether the Freudian is right or wrong about infantile sexuality, there
is no doubt at all that the precautions as to its future development are
taken pretty early in primitive societies. The taboos are imposed very soon

^*This duality of influences and principles of conduct was the main argument of my
two books Crime and Custom in Savage Society (1926) and Sex and Repression in
Savage Society (1927).

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

in life. The prohibition of any sexual or erotic interest between members
of the same household is universal. It is independent of mother-right or
father-right: the taboo embraces both parents under either system of
counting kinship. It is also independent of ideas about procreation, of
the state of morality in a culture, of forms of marriage and of residence.
The taboo on incest is a universal rule throughout humanity, endures
through life, and is usually the strongest, most deeply felt moral prohibi-
tion.

But even with all this, great varieties obtain. In some communities,
especially in Oceania, there is an absurd over-emphasis of the taboo be-
tween brother and sister. In others, the mother and son relationship is
much more strongly prohibited, only very seldom is father-daughter incest
regarded as an equally heinous offence.

The most important differences, however, are to be found in the exten-
sion of incest taboos. The strict prohibition obtains only as regards the
family in the narrowest sense. Beyond this a variety sets in, usually as-
sociated with the unilateral counting of kinship, but even then with an
extraordinary number of divergences. The full unilateral extension of
incest gives rise to the well-known phenomenon of exogamy. This rule —
almost invariably associated with the existence of clans — lays down that
marriage must never take place between members of the same clan.

Exogamy develops out of incest, gradually, within the life history of
the individual. The boy or the girl moves within a number of cognate
households, those of the father's brother, for instance, and the mother's
sister. The extension of kinship by direct growth on the family pattern
embraces both these households. The offspring of both would be addressed
as brothers and sisters, they would be the favorite playmates, while their
parents would be addressed by the same terms as their own parents and
felt to be substitute or secondary parents. But fairly early in life a dif-
ference would set in and become gradually sharper and more pronounced
as the children grew up. One household, under mother-right that of the
mother's sister, would become officially and legally kindred. The boys
there would be legally treated as equivalent to the own brothers, while
as regards the sisters a definite taboo would set in. They could not be
treated in an erotic manner; from any play which involved sexual inter-
est, they would have to be excluded, while on the other hand they would
gradually assume a special relationship very much like that of their own
sisters.

And as life progresses, more and more households, related on the
mother's side, would be included in this type of relationship. The family
terms of relationship would be extended to all these people, the com-
munity of the clan name and the unity of common totemic descent
would unite all these men and women as clansmen and clanswomen. They
would become legally united, under an obligation to defend each other

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

in all clan feuds; owning, perhaps, some amount of property together;
cooperating in enterprises; jointly financing feasts, wars and other under-
takings. Above all, between the men and the women there would obtain
a special, somewhat constrained, sober, non-erotic relationship— at least
on the surface, for lapses from exogamy are not unknown. And, in the
carrying out of religious or magical duties the members of the same clan
would very often act as one group.

Thus it can be said that in no other aspect can the twofold nature of
the kinship process and the twofold character of the products be seen
as clearly as in the incidence of the sexual taboos. Exogamy is the result
of a one-sided extension of the kinship attitude of avoiding sexually those
bodily related. But this one-sided growth of incest in no way invalidates
the full strength and bilateral character of the original taboo. Family
incest remains prohibited by an independent set of rules. Both the proc-
esses and the products are related but autonomous.

We have arrived at the end of our descriptive survey. The individual
whose life history we have followed is now married, at the head of his
new household. He is still attached to his old family and he stands in a
new relationship to the household and his wife. Besides this, however, he
has formed a whole series of other bonds. He has contracted the bonds
of extended kinship uniting him to several households, directly related to
his parents. He has taken over with his wife a similar group of her ex-
tended relatives. But he has, above all, through the consistent one-sided
extension of ties, acquired a definite status in a strictly circumscribed
group — the clan.

As a result of the complex process of formation of kinship bonds we
see the individual encompassed by a series of kinship rings, member of
several kinship groups. In the genetic sense the most important of them
is the family. But all of them have their respective functions to perform, I
and each assumes now and then a dominant importance. Nor is their
multiplicity devoid of complications and conflicts. The legal figment of
exclusive kinship in the one line, that is of clanship, is never fully adjusted
to and balanced with the claims of the family. The complexity of kinship
is the main source of social troubles and maladjustments, next, perhaps,
to sexual jealousy, rivalries of ambition and economic greed.

Our results show up the absurdity of the usual dilemma in treating
kinship: it is not either individual or communal, either the family or the
clan. Kinship in primitive communties is both individual and collective,
and it is also the kinship of the extended kindred group, of the relation-
ship-in-law — it presents, in fact, a multiplicity of facets. We have seen
how all this comes about and to what results it leads.

We have also become aware of how the multiplicity of facets is main-
tained. The tribal life of a primitive people is not absolutely homogeneous.

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

It falls, above all, into two main phases: private and public, that of
everyday concerns and that of ceremonial activities; that, in short, of the
Profane and of the Sacred. Whether this distinction is absolute, whether
it lends itself to all the theoretical manipulations to which it has been
submitted by [Emile] Durkheim and his school, is irrelevant. But there
is no doubt that, throughout the world, most of a people's time is spent
in economic concerns on a small scale — in the tilling of the soil, in hunt-
ing and fishing, in the patient carrying out of craft and industry. This
type of existence is dominated by the household: each family work their
own plot of ground or do their own collecting of food; they cook and
feed together; they spend a great deal of their time and take their
amusements within the family circle. It is in this phase of tribal life that
the family is paramount. These Profane seasons are not any less "social"
than is ceremonial life. Custom and tribal law control and dominate the
individual side of kinship as much as they do the collective side.

But in every tribe there are times when the whole community collects,
magical ends are pursued and spiritual values reasserted. Economic needs
are often satisfied by communal hunting or fishing or by feeding the
assembled people from a communal stock of stored vegetables. At such
periods sexual life is often stirred to greater activity and since the
tribe is assembled on a vast scale, the rules of exogamy come definitely
into operation. This ceremonial phase of tribal life is dominated by the
institution of the clan. Clansmen and clanswomen have often to act
together; families are broken up in the performance of ceremonial duties;
and individual relationship is definitely subordinated to the classificatory
principle. It is a recrystallization of the sociological system within the
tribe, rationally motivated to the adult, impressive to the youth, often
bewildering to the child. This dissolution of the family at ceremonial oc-
casions, as I have often witnessed it myself in Melanesia, is a real and
powerful factor in the moulding of the twofold operation of individual
and collective kinship.

There are, of course, also what might be called intermediate phases.
There is economic cooperation on a large scale, though not yet on a
tribal one. This is done by the local group and the ties of extended kin-
ship usually govern ownership, mutual help, reciprocity, as well as the
sharing of results.

There are the respective legal duties controlled by individual and ex-
tended kinship. And, again, there is clan solidarity operative in vendetta
and in communal rights to objects of great value or with mythological
claims. Here the clan once more becomes paramount. There is, finally,
war with all its magic and ritual of declaration and peace-making, and
here the clan and the relationship between clans dominates the situation.

Thus the several facets of kinship function alternatively on different
occasions, each is correlated, at least in its principal manifestations, to

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

one phase of tribal life. Through all the manifestations, however, the
element of parenthood is, in one way or another, ostensible. It is, of
course, the permanent foundation of the bilateral family; it directly
affects the bonds of extended kinship; in one of its sides it is the starting
point and the nucleus of clan unity. And throughout the whole process
of grov/th and splitting of kinship, in all its manifestations, the influence
of the initial situation makes itself felt in the classificatory usages of kin-
ship terms, first formed in the family and then gradually and succes-
sively extended to all the wider groupings.

Terminology is one of the main mechanisms expressing the growth of
kinship and controlling it. We must still say a few words about it. I
have left it on purpose till this stage of the argument because the study
of kinship words has dominated and warped the study of kinship facts
to an extraordinary extent. Words are associated with kinship ties and in
a way control them. But it is impossible to understand the meaning of
words except by correlating them to social realities, for they are the
products of social intercourse and they grow out of life. It is really in
the study of their growth as the by-products of the development of per-
sonal ties that we can gain insight into their nature.

Let us face the classificatory puzzle at its very core — the terms used
for parents by children. Each man addresses several elderly males and fe-
males by the same terms, father and mother respectively. Now we have
already seen that, sociologically, a man has always one real father and
one real mother but that there is a series of people who grow into his
life as substitute fathers and mothers. They become more and more
diluted, so to speak, more and more shadowy in their parental character.
Yet, at times — and as regards the unilateral extensions, which in due
time yield the clan — the fathers and mothers, the brothers and sisters,
appear in solid blocks of kindred. But this takes place only on certain
occasions and from certain points of view. The own parents dominate
the home, ordinary life, most of the emotional and personal interests.
The classificatory "blocks" appear at ceremonies or on legal occasions.

How is this sociological reality translated into linguistic usage? To a
superficial observer it would appear that only one word is used and that
consequently there is only a group-relationship. But better linguistic ac-
quaintance would show that the word is used in several senses with each
time a different accent, different phraseology, and within a different con-
text. We might speak of a series of homonyms — better even, of a series of
words represented by the same sound but, in actual speech, always dis-
tinguishable. The correct way would be to say that the native word for
mother is always "indexed," so to speak, by emotional inflection, by con-
text and by phrasing.

Now, native languages swarm with homonyms. And these are not due

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

to the often alleged "poverty of language" or ''slovenliness of speech."
Most homonyms are significant metaphors. Primitive magic is full of
them. The use of simile and metaphor is in verbal magic what a sympa-
thetic act is in ritual. We ourselves use kinship terms, such as father and
mother, in our prayers — again as metaphors. What function do such
metaphors fulfil in our prayer and in primitive magic? They impose a
binding obligation on our divinity. We address Him as Father so that he
might be merciful and answer our approach in childlike confidence with a
fatherly response. The native metaphorically addressing his blue skies as
a Black Cloud imposes a binding obligation on the impersonal forces that
be to turn drought into rain.

Can this principle of binding metaphor in the use of kinship terms ac-
count for the development of classificatory terms? The native starts, as
a child, with one meaning of kinship terms, moulded on the personal
relationship within the family which is his initial situation, linguistically
as well as socially. This primary meaning, later on, he is taught to extend
to one relative after the other. Roughly speaking, the first extension is
that of the term so far used only for the real mother to the mother's sis-
ter. This extension is no more a complete assimilation of meaning than is
the sociological relationship of the child to the mother's sister identical
with that which obtains between it and the mother. I have watched the
process of this primary extension among Melanesian savages and have seen
how difficult it is merely to induce the child to use the term in an ex-
tended meaning. The child has to form a new meaning for the old word.
In reality he acquires a new word with the same form but a different sub-
ject-matter. He will use the word in a different manner and under differ-
ent circumstances. When, after some resistance, he comes to apply the term
mother to his mother's sister, he does not confuse the two people nor mix
up the two ideas; he does not, in other words, carry out a complete lin-
guistic identification. By the time the child learns to use his language with
discrimination and to get the feel of it, he knows that he merely empha-
sizes a similarity and passes over the differences.

What is, to pass now to our sociological terminology, the function of
this one-sided linguistic emphasis? Well, the similarity in the relationship
between mother and mother's sister is the basis of all the legal obligations
of the newly acquired relative. It is in virtue of being a potential equiva-
lent to the mother that the maternal aunt is under an obligation to the
child. It is therefore this side of the relationship which is linguistically
expressed. We have here, therefore, a metaphorical use of the word,
though the metaphor here is not magically but legally binding. The
partial equivalence is verbally transformed into a fictitious identity be-
cause this identity is relevant to the child.

The same argument applies, obviously, to the direct extension of the
term father to father's brother, and of the terms brother and sister to

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

those first cousins with whom, under a unilateral counting of descent,
relevant kinship establishes an identity of substance.

It is interesting to note that the twofold process of kinship growth
finds its counterpart in the formation of kinship terminologies. Among
the people who are directly kin to the parents there are those to whom
no direct extension of an already existing kinship attitude is possible.
Apart from the grandparents, the father's sister and the mother's brother,
as well as their offspring, technically called cross-cousins, are usually
named by new terms of kinship. These people, as we know, occupy so-
ciologically a special position; they are the people who give the extra-
familial imprint to the process of unilateral over-emphasis. It is impossible
here, however, linguistically to follow up this intricate and difficult proc-
ess in detail. We shall have to be satisfied with having laid down the
main principle.

The important thing is to note that there are phases of kinship termi-
nology even as there are phases in the social reality of kinship. The native
vocabulary in kinship is never a homogeneous whole. It is always a com-
pound of several layers: one of them, the terms of individual usage,
corresponds to the primary meanings derived from the initial situation.
We might describe as the second layer of kinship terminology, that which
results from the direct extension to the nearest kindred of the parents.
There is a body of terms used to more distant relatives, traceable through
genealogy and prominent within the local grouping. There is the body of
terms obtained in that sudden extension of relationship which comes with
marriage. Finally there is the system of classificatory usages applied to
the tribe at large and describing this time groups and not individuals. In
this last use, and in this only, are the terms really classificatory. They
form a very limited part of the whole range of linguistic usages and they
correspond to those phases of tribal life when the clan exerts its sway
over the individual and when, in ceremonial or legal activities, clan faces
clan within tribal life.

Bluntly put, this simply means that it is nothing short of nonsense to
speak of any native terminology as classificatory in its integral character.
Native terms are used in a classificatory way only on occasions. All the
explanations by "survival," by the association with group-marriage, are
to us as futile as the explanation by ''polite terms of address." Even the
laborious and learned correlation of classificatory kinship terminologies
with the clan system, worked out by Rivers, is spurious. For, in the first
place, the classificatory use of terms never completely corresponds to the
clan division; and, in the second place, the limited correspondence controls
only the one form of use.

We have established that the so-called classificatory character of native
kinship terms is the result of a series of extensions. In these the linguistic
pseudo-identification has a definite function. By the binding metaphor of

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

language it gives expression to the substitution of one relative for another
if need be, and it thus strengthens, linguistically, the system of social
insurance which is the basis of primitive cohesion. Here, again, we find
that it is in the relations of the several layers within the same system of
terms that the real nature and functional value of the whole can be
established. Yet the very existence of the stratified character of primitive
terminologies has been completely ignored by previous anthropological
workers.

We have now followed the development of kinship along the line of
the life history of a typical primitive tribesman. It was necessary, here
and there, to indicate the possible varieties which arise under different
conditions of mother-right or father-right respectively, of different sexual
taboos and forms of license. Yet with all this it was possible to give a
coherent and representative picture of human kinship on primitive levels.
We have demonstrated that its initial situation is in the family; we have
shown the derived character of the extended bonds; we have traced the
social mechanisms through which derivation takes place; we have been
able to assign the proper place to sex in relation to marriage, and of mar-
riage in relation to the family, and lastly to define clanship and classi-
ficatory kinship as the final and most highly derived products of parent-
hood. Throughout we were able to arrive at a number of sociological
generalizations; to lay down a series of laws, which define the relations
of the various component parts of the one big system which controls the
continuity of the human species and of human culture.

Perhaps the most important of our generalizations is that all these
phenomena, sex, mating, parenthood, clanship and classificatory termi-
nology, can only be understood if we consider them in relation to each
other, as parts of a big procreative institution. The core of this institu-
tion is the human family: that is, parenthood culturally defined and mar-
riage as a social contract. The principal function of the compound institu-
tion is the continuity of the human species, but in direct dependence on
this procreative function, the family has to act as the principal agency
in the education of the child. By education was here understood the full
cultural equipment of the individual for tribal life and the placing of
him in the framework of the community.

Sex, we were able to prove, is subordinated to marriage, and marriage
is fundamentally determined by parenthood in that it is a social charter
for the establishment of a legitimate family rather than a license for
sexual intercourse. Thus, the main function of parenthood consists in the
transformation of the biological endowment into Ufelong emotional ties
and in the making of these into complex cultural forces. It is, therefore,
the essence of human parenthood that, through the building of strong
emotional attitudes on biological foundations, it endures, it leads to the

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

establishment of a lifelong social relationship of mutual obligations and
services. This, however, since human beings never live in single families
but in groups of them, entails the building of new ties in virtue of the
parental ones and directly on the pattern of them. Parenthood, thus, is
invariably the starting point of wider social relationships.

Yet these extensions, which in many respects grow along the natural
lines of the family constitution — that is, in following up the kinship
bonds of both father and mother — have to be limited in some ways to one
line only. The transmission of material possessions, of status, and of rank,
is in all human societies submitted to definite rules. The main principle
of all such rules is that one line only of parenthood should be counted
as legally relevant. We have seen that unilateral descent, succession and
inheritance are intimately bound up with order and simplicity, with co-
hesion and continuity of tradition. At the same time, once the paternal
or the maternal side is legally over-emphasized as relevant and the other
overlooked, the extension of kinship leads to the formation of new, wider
groupings, technically named clans or sibs.

Thus the extension of family ties takes place along two channels, not
always clearly differentiated in the reality of tribal life, but sharply dis-
tinguishable in their functional determination and in the effects which
they produce. We have followed both processes and shown that their
results correspond to their function. We studied, on the one hand, the
gradual consolidation of family ties: the formation of new bonds in
direct extension and on the pattern of the family; the persistence of the
old household and the grouping of other related households around the
original nucleus. The product of this process is the consolidated parent-
hood as it affects the mature individual, the extended family or Gross-
familie; and the bilateral, genealogically defined system of kindred and
relatives.

On the other hand, we studied the second process which begins fairly
early in life with the traditional decree making one side and one side only !
relevant in legal kinship. We have shown how, through a series of acts, '
such as initiation and other transition rites, with the gradual imposition
of tribal duties, the clan takes hold of the individual, principally in cere-
monial and legal matters, but to a large extent also in economic coopera-
tion and political aflfairs.

In all this we have seen that kinship, though it starts from a common ■
source, that of procreation, develops a number of aspects. Kinship, in its
tribal or collective aspect, is by no means identical with kinship in its '
domestic aspect. As the ties extend in the unilateral process their original !
fam.iiy character becomes more and more attenuated and diluted by other '
ingredients. In the bilateral process of direct growth the family pattern
remains more permanent, but even there it must be remembered that the '
parental relationship is modified when the child becomes an adult. But

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

though the developed family of the adult tribesman has also lost a con-
siderable number of the elements of which it was made up to the infant
and child, yet it still consists of the same people. The ties which bind
them together are the direct development of those which in childhood
united offspring to parents.

The developed kinship system of an adult tribesman, which comprises
both classificatory and individual ties as well as several minor ones, bears
only a remote, at times mainly figurative resemblance to the family ties
as these were in infancy. But in all the processes which lead to the final
kinship system, each new set of ties is built under the influence of the
initial situation and as an extension of it. We must, however, establish a
more precise distinction between the component parts of the compound
system.

The primary and fundamental elements of the parent-to-child rela-
tionship— the fact of procreation, the physiological services, the innate
emotional responses — which make up the family bonds vanish completely
from the relationship within the clan. Totemic identity, the unity of
clan-names, the mythological fiction of common descent in one line,
magical, religious and legal cooperation, are new elements which enter
into clan relationships and which constitute the greatly modified kinship
of the clan.

But though the clan is essentially non-reproductive, non-sexual and
non-parental — though it is never a primary basis and source of kinship —
its connection with the family is real and genetic. The clan grows out of
the family and kinship round one of the parents by the affirmation of the
exclusive relevancy of this one parent, by the injunction of legal soli-
darity with kindred of one side only, often accompanied by legal fictions
and linguistic metaphors in classificatory terminologies.

It is necessary to insist on this fundamental difference between the
clan and the family just because the two institutions have been so hope-
lessly confused. The clan, as we know, has been defined as a domestic
institution, as the savage equivalent of the family, as a reproductive
group. But as a matter of fact, the clan is never an independent, self-
sufficient kinship unit. It differs from the family in that, by definition,
any type of sexual relationship is excluded from the clan; thus the
husband-wife relationship, which is one of the fundamentals of the
family, has no counterpart within the clan. Again, the relations between
the older and the younger generations within the clan, or between age
grades, are neither counterparts nor copies of the parent-to-child relation.
Above all, there is nothing, not even a trace, of what might be regarded
as reproductive functions within the clan. Sex, as we know, is rigidly
excluded, matrimony even more so. And as we have just seen, there is
nothing corresponding to the early infantile relation between parent and
child. The initial situation always falls outside the clan.

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

What then corresponds, on the wide, communal or collective scale to
the family? The clan, as we know, is in its very inception based upon the
elimination of either the paternal or the maternal side from relevant kin-
ship. In the collective system, therefore, it is the clan of the relevant
parent plus the clan of the irrelevant parent plus the clans related to Ego
by marriage and other forms of affinity — it is all these clans which
together embrace the classificatory body of relatives. Classificatory nomen-
clature always refers to the tribe or to a large part of it, and never to one
clan only. It is not the clan, therefore, but the tribe as a correlated system
of clans which corresponds to the family on the classificatory level of
kinship.

With this we are able to define the clan functionally as the institution
which standardizes one-sidedly the extended aspect of parenthood. The
clan, however, unlike the family, is always part of a larger system, never
a self-contained unit. The full functional reality of clanship is only
achieved by the integration of the clans as correlated units into a larger
tribal whole.

We can also, now, define kinship as, in the first place, the personal
bonds based on procreation socially interpreted; and, in the second place,
as the complex system of wider bonds derived from the primary ones
by the twofold process of direct extension and of unilateral reinterpreta-
tion.

We have now redeemed all or most of our promises. We have laid
down from the functional point of view the relation of the family to the
clan and explained their coexistence. We have given a functional defini-
tion of kinship, after having ascertained its multiple character. We have
shown that the unilateral over-emphasis of kinship fulfils the function of
contributing to order and continuity in the transmission of culture. We
have assigned a place to sexual excesses as a trial-and-error method of i
mate selection and as a safety-valve to the natural experimental impulse ^
of sex. We have shown that the function of incest taboos and of exogamy !
is the elimination of sex from sentiments which are incompatible with its
violent destructive force and its further elimination from the sober
working partnership on which parenthood and clanship are based. We
have shown that the function of classificatory terminologies is verbally to
document, by the legal force of binding metaphor, the obligations of
secondary parenthood and derived relationships.

In all this there was hardly any question of origins, of distribution or
diffusion. The type of explanation here given is not altogether familiar
even to the modern anthropologist. Its main characteristic consists in
showing that certain forms of social organization, universally found,
contribute towards cohesion, continuity of tradition, the interlocking
multiplicity of bonds, the better integration of individual sentiments, and

PARENTHOOD — THE BASIS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

the more efficient working of the social machinery. In the particular
case of Kinship, we were able to show that cultural processes tend to
follow the direction of innate biological drives, that physiological facts
are made gradually to ripen into sentiments and these again lead to purely
cultural institutions.

The functional method allows us, then, to establish the laws of bio-
graphical growth; to place the various elements of the kinship institution
in their correct perspective; to establish a relevant relationship between
them.

Exactly as the correlation of efficient military organization with po-
litical power, and of large political units with conquest are sociological
laws; exactly as the persistence of slavery at certain levels of culture can
be related to industrial efficiency, commercial power, and again to strong
political organization; so the correlation of the multiplicity of kinship
bonds with stability, order, strong family life, gives us relevant socio-
logical laws.

The functional method leads us to a full and comprehensive grasp of
facts; to their correct description; to the exact definition of the various
elements of the problem and to a detailed correlation of the various
phases of kinship. This it can do and no more. But without at least a pre-
liminary treatment from the functional point of view, the anthropologist
runs a serious risk of distorting facts, of defining them incorrectly and
of setting before himself insoluble problems to which he then proceeds
to give imaginary solutions. This has been the bane of the Science of
Man and the present attempt, if it does no more than place the problem
on a correct foundation, will have been amply justified.

With all this I do not want to pretend to an attitude of false modesty.
I am convinced that the functional treatment is the only really adequate
approach to the subject. The Jack-in-the-box explanations of all the kin-
ship and sexuahty puzzles appear to me altogether spurious and unneces-
sary. And they are based, one and all, on a terrible mutilation of facts
through an altogether unjustifiable carving and lopping. But, above all, I
feel that in this symposium — in company, that is, with practical soci-
ologists interested in the present and future of parenthood and in its past
in so far as it bears on the present and future — I am really at home. For
the comparative science of man can be of use to sociology just in so far
as it is able to show the essentials of kinship and of the family, of parent-
hood and of marriage; the true nature of sexual excess and of sexual
morality. The anthropologist has scientifically to define the real and ef-
fective morals of marriage and parenthood, that is, the sound sociological
laws which control these institutions. He must show where the family
comes in, whence it draws its forces, how far it is inevitable and where
it can be dispensed with. It is just this type of generalization which we
have been able to achieve here.

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

It is clear, therefore, that anthropology must supply the student of
modern society not with precedent but with sociological law. Were we
to prove that unbridled promiscuity was the main pastime of Mr. Pithe-
canthropus Erectus and his wife, this, in itself, could not justify "petting
parties" and certain similar institutions. Nor need our views on modern
communism or upon its compatibility with human nature be profoundly
influenced by the discovery that primitive forms of communism have oc-
curred occasionally in early societies. The argument from "natural inclina-
tion" is as spurious as that from primeval precedent. But if we can prove
that marriage as a legal contract and the family as a culturally defined
group of parents and children, can be traced through all the changes
and vicissitudes of history, if we can show that even license serves to
strengthen the family and marriage, our outlook becomes more plastic
and tolerant and our judgment more competent. In the first place, we
look with a certain diffidence upon any attempt to subvert or reform
these institutions through any radical change. Revolutionary decrees for
the abolition of the family and for the substitution of legalized free-love
for marriage are bound to be abortive, for they run counter to the soci-
ological laws which we have proved to be universal.

At the same time the mere stubbornness of the moral reactionary who
does not want even the form of such institutions changed, who opposes
the discussion of divorce, of contraceptives or of the "revolt of modern
youth," works against the cause of true conservatism. For in the first
place the knowledge of real facts establishes the value of marriage and
the family. And in the second place, nothing subverts the substance of a
social institution so much as a blind adherence to outworn forms and
obsolete habits which survive by mere inertia.

The anthropologically trained sociologist cannot deal in rosy ideals or
in Utopian millenniums. There was never a perfect child nor a perfect
parent and there never will be. A complexity of motives and interests
and the persistence of conflict have met us at every turn of our investi-
gation.

Functional anthropology is thus an essentially conservative science.
The institutions of marriage and the family are indispensable, they should
be saved at all costs in the present wrecking of so many things old and
valuable. But, like all really conservative tendencies, the functional view
advocates intelligent and even drastic reform wherever this is necessary.
If marriage and the family are in need of a much greater tolerance in
matters of sex and of parental authority, these reforms ought to be
formulated, studied and tested in the light of the relevant sociological
laws and not in a mere haphazard, piecemeal fashion.

APING THE APE; otf an anthropologist looks at the
modern world from his primitive cave-dwelling

"You have killed passion,'* said the sad Old Man.

"We have discovered pleasure," retorted the Flapper. "We have dis-
covered pleasure which satisfies and does not destroy. Passion was danger-
ous, it tore you to pieces and cast you high and dry on the rocks of
tragedy or the sands of disillusionment. We do not want to relive Tristan
and Isolde, nor yet the story of Anna Karenina. We in turn have torn
passion into small bits and scattered them over the gay nights of our
existence."

"Yes, and in forgetting how to suffer you have forgotten how to love."

"What yoii call love is just a romantic and sentimental pose. It doesn't
fit into modern life; it doesn't mean anything to me or to any of us —
any more than it meant anything to the full-blooded primeval savage.
We are tired of that conspiracy of Continental Romantics and mid-
Victorian prudes and its sentimentalities. We have no sympathy with the
lovesick maiden or the brokenhearted hero. To us they are pathological
specimens — hormones and liver and a couple of complexes. Our kind of
love is much wider — more comprehensive. We don't pick and choose
by your hazy sentimental ideals, but by our needs of the moment. We
have made love a thing of give and take all round — nicely pooled and
redistributed."

"In my gay young days," mused the sentimental Old Man, "there was
a song in Paris, 'J'aime la femme et la folie.' This was also an abstract
love for an impersonal object, syndicalised and communal. It was loving
woman as a prostitute. Now [man] love[s] woman as the Mother-Image
or as the Communal Wife. The most modern among you have made man
and woman into interchangeable parts in the well-oiled mechanism of the
routine of organised petting parties."

"Anyhow," said the Flapper, "we know now how to use contraceptives
— and how to use our economic independence and easy divorce. You'll never

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

drive us back into the old patriarchal marriage — we have finished with
the degradation and enslavement of women, with religious taboos and
irrational chastity. J. B. Watson says that in fifty years there will be no
such thing as marriage. Love is an entirely private and personal affair — as
you would see if you read Havelock Ellis. Look at Bertrand Russell, too —
he shows clearly enough that jealousy, which you probably think is a
rather grand emotion, is mostly made up of possessiveness and is nothing
but a burden on a man or woman. Everybody has a right to be happy —
Dora Russell has given us the charter for that."

The wise Old Man began to explain that Havelock Ellis and Bertrand
Russell have said many other things as well, many wise things, showing
that marriage and family life are after all not to be jettisoned lightly —
but the Flapper had snapped off the argument and was already beyond the
reach of wisdom and of sentiment or of Old Age.

This is a paraphrase of a conversation which I heard sometime, some-
where; was it in Bloomsbury or in Greenwich Village, or in Charlotten-
burg ... I cannot remember; or was it only in a bad dream — one of
those Freudian dreams which are not altogether wish-fulfilments?

The headlong rush into . . . ?

Such things make you feel old and sad and wise if you belong to the
pre-war generation. Things have hurried past us, and much has been
destroyed without which life seems very empty and unsettled. The Great
War started the social havoc, then came Einstein and destroyed the
physical world. The motor-car and now the aeroplane are destroying
natural beauty and defiling nature — that is, to us old-fashioned people.
But perhaps the most unsettling and destructive thing is this uncertainty
which we feel. Is contemporary civihsation going through a crisis of un-
precedented magnitude or is it comfortably developing on progressive
lines? Are we being driven with a vertiginous speed somewhere, somehow,
to an unknown goal, unknown but essentially destructive — or are we
merely rationalising human existence, as we have rationalised our theories,
our industries, and our street traffic?

That there is some destruction all around us, there is no doubt. We are
tired, we are even frightened — so tired and frightened at times that
repression seems the only comfortable way out. We don't want to listen
to the threats of the decline of the Western World — that everything is
going to the dogs.

But let us sample the problem and concentrate our attention on the
crisis in marriage and the family, as well as in love-making suggested in
the overheard conversation. Here again the essence of what is happening
is difficult to assess. Looked at from one angle, civilisation's time-
honoured arrangement of marriage and the family appears as the only

APING THE APE

institution really safe, founded as it is on the bed-rock of human nature,
defined by immemorial tradition, unassailable by most of the forces of
modernism. A great many conservatives (using this term in the widest
sense, i.e. those attached to tradition and permanence), looking at mar-
riage from this angle, would simply discourage any change and leave
alone this sheet-anchor of social stability. "The Englishman's home is
his castle" — the proverb in its sociological symbolism stands for the belief
that the domestic institution will remain the stronghold of Anglo-Saxon
culture and of modern culture in general.

But looking at it from this angle only we would be blinding ourselves
completely to realities. Sex and the freedom of sex have become important
subversive forces. They have been adopted almost as the insignia of revo-
lutionary attitudes by the new generation, who spiritualise promiscuity
and regard "old-fashioned" morality as the last entrenchmenttof repressive
taboos and prejudices. They find marriage and the family one of the
main obstacles to their achievement of personal happiness. On the other
hand, those who believe that a wholesale reconstruction and reorganisation
of society is necessary, whether on lines of Communism or Fascism or any
other social creed, naturally and reasonably feel that as long as the State
does not control the reproduction as well as the education of the young,
the domestic circle will remain the stubborn guardian of the old order.

On the whole neither the believers in automatic stability nor those who
anticipate the complete extermination of marriage and legitimate parent-
hood within a generation or two are very helpful to us — they are not true
to the reality of fact. Yet the whole discussion is carried on from these
extreme positions; it is not so much a discussion as an angry shouting
across wide spaces. And what is the role of the prophets of cold reason,
as we might call the scientific experts in whom the modern man places
such implicit trust? And who is going to be the real expert on marriage?
As an anthropologist, I should like to claim for my science, not to say
for myself, the privilege of being able to speak dispassionately and intel-
ligently on the past, present and future of marriage and family. But
anthropology, especially when it talks about marriage, has a bad name,
and it deserves it.

For the last three quarters of a century or so, students of primitive
cultures have quarrelled about the "origins of marriage," about the
morality of primitive man, about his fidelity, his jealousy, and his parent-
hood. They were to all appearances divided into two irreconcilable camps.

"Up till relatively recent times, about the middle of the last century,
matters appeared to the students of the subject in a very simple fashion.
The two great authorities of our Christian civilisation, the Bible and
Aristotle, contain positive statements about the origins of marriage and
the importance of the family. To the mediaeval theologian and to the
nineteenth century sociologist, marriage appeared respectively as a divine,

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

and as a natural institution, and the patriarchal family as the cell of
society, while any deviations from monogamy were regarded as exceptions,
lapses or irrelevancies. Even as late as 1861 Sir Henry Maine could affirm
that it was difficult to see 'what society of men had not been originally
based on the patriarchal family.' This simple doctrine, the Adam and Eve
theory of primitive marriage, as we might call it, was based on authority
rather than on observation, on reticences rather than on the frank discus-
sion of facts, on belief and moral prejudice rather than on a dispassionate
desire for truth. Anthropology, therefore, was doomed to modify if not to
explode this theory, and it did so with a vengeance.'*

I have quoted this passage verbatim from a previous article of mine
written about ten years ago, because I have recently been classed by a
group of militant Misbehaviourists and pseudo-anthropologists as a sup-
porter of Sir Henry Maine's views, and the nickname "Adam-and-Eve
theories of marriage origins," which I coined myself, has been affixed to
me (sic!) without any acknowledgment of course!

Let me return however to the history of the problem. As I said, the
explosion of the naive Adam-and-Eve views was so destructive that it
blew everything to pieces. Towards the middle of the last century a
number of scholars hit upon what appeared to be an illuminating as well
as a sound and genuine scientific discovery. They suddenly received a
revelation, partly from facts, partly from that "inner consciousness"
which revealed to the German philosopher the nature of the camel (or
was it an elephant?). The revelation told them that it was not a para-
disiacal monogamy but licentious, horrid promiscuity in which primitive
man lived; that far from having a well-regulated family he lived in a
horde where everyone mated with everyone else, where the children were
communally held by group mothers and group fathers, where there was
no order, no morality, no anything.

The first perhaps to hit upon the new ideas was Bachofen, a stodgy and
learned Swiss lawyer. Pondering over old texts, Greek and Latin mytholo-
gies, and legal documents, he found that in olden days most human
societies lived under mother-right, that is, women were the stronger sex,
descent was counted from the mother, and the father was an irrelevant
item in the household. This was well in accordance with the fact that in
many primitive communities motherhood is of greater importance than
paternity.

The solution of this state of affairs which came to Bachofen as one of
those scientific illuminations which create an epoch — though often an
epoch of muddle and side-tracking — is well known. His inner vision
showed him original mankind living in sexual promiscuity, with neither
marriage nor fatherhood nor morality. Woman was desecrated by male
concupiscence, she was enslaved, she was nothing more than a prostitute.
But women, by nature morally stronger than the male sex, revolted

APING THE APE

against this desecration. They established individual marriage, discrimina-
tive maternity, and in doing so they introduced law, order and morality.

A great American ethnologist, Lewis H. Morgan, was led by the study
of the so-called classificatory terminology of kinship to frame similar
hypotheses. According to him, human society originated in complete
sexual promiscuity, passed then through the consanguine family, the
punaluan household, group marriage, polyandry, polygyny, and what-not,
arriving only after a laborious process of fifteen transformations in the
happy haven of monogamous marriage. About the same time, McLennan
and Lord Avebury in Great Britain, [Felix] Giraud-Teulon in France,
Post in Germany were coming to similar conclusions and substantiating
them with elaborate arguments. From savage countries came corroborating
evidence furnished by an army of observers: Howitt from Australia,
[Robert Henry] Codrington and Fison from Melanesia, [Jan Stanislaw]
Kubary from the Micronesian Islands, [George A.] Wilken from the
Malay Archipelago, [Alfred] Grandidier from Madagascar, Kovalevsky
from the Caucasus.

This revolution in scientific views about the origins of marriage for a
time completely held ground, but the sudden and dramatic way in which
opinions on the family and marriage had veered round naturally produced
fatal consequences. No revolution has ever borne unadulterated fruits.
And here also, after a time, there came a reaction, extreme, destructive,
and as reactions often are, one-sided and far too sweeping. Darwin,
Andrew Lang, Crawley, and last not least, Westermarck, put the assump-
tion of primitive promiscuity and group marriage to a searching criticism
and it was found that these new theories of the complete absence of
marriage from primitive cultures, of the communal character of early
mating and family — that these hypotheses can be no more accepted than
the old Adam-and-Eve theory of marriage, at least they cannot be accepted
wholesale.

For almost half a century the deadlock between the two rival schools
lasted. Even a few years ago I was able to write that ''Anthropology is
divided into two camps upon almost every question connected with primi-
tive marriage, sexuality and family life. Like many a savage tribe, anthro-
jpologists are in this matter organised according to the dual principle,
|| divided into two moieties or phratries, one claiming descent from a
I patriarchal pair, the other from the communistic horde, the one having
as its totemic ancestor the monogamous ape, the other the promiscuous
Ibaboon, the one having Morgan for its patron saint, the other Wester-
jmarck." But since then matters have considerably improved, and I cer-
tainly would not endorse my by now antiquated statement. At present we
jare steering through many difficulties towards a synthesis which embraces
the schools of Morgan and of Westermarck. Adam-and-Eve anthropology
had to be exploded. The naive and simple solution explaining everything

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

by promiscuity or mother-right had also to be critically rejected. And now
we are moving towards a position which has to recognise the reahty of
many of the facts which one or other of the schools tried to ignore — the
co-existence of family and clan, of sexual license and of strict morality —
and we have to evolve a theoretical treatment which is much more
complex but also much more instructive.

The play of myth and precedent in anthropology

Why has our science been for such a long time a source of great entertain-
ment to the pubhc, who are amused by it and at times at it? Because
though it could have been a real force in modern life, a great practical
moral influence, it has so far been mainly playing at problems, construct-
ing fairy tales about primitive man, while its only moral trend has been
an invitation to modern man to imitate his primeval ancestor. Incredible
as it sounds, aping the ape was to a large extent the motto, the watchword,
of research into pre-history and the study of savage cultures.

Let me demonstrate this briefly. For a long time the main anthropologi-
cal game was the search for origins. "Primitive man," that is, primeval
man, the missing link, had to be reconstructed. Modern savages provided
us with the stage properties by which this reconstruction was carried out.
Primitive man had to be very savage, he had to be amusing, but above
all, he had to be painted very much in black and white, he had to present
the clearcut character of "unspoilt human nature."

But here came the snag. Once you put the essentially wrong problem:
"What is primitive man in his really original nature?" and once you
assume that this nature must be very outspoken, you are likely to exag-
gerate any marked or striking feature into the dominant characteristic.
Thus if we look through the theories of "original man" we can collect an
amusing and kaleidoscopic variety of primitive silhouettes. We have the
bloodthirsty savage who haunted many of the older accounts of primitive
Kfe, the missionaries' tales and the Red Indian stories. By contrast, such
contemporary writers as Father W. Schmidt, Professor Elliot Smith and
Dr. [William James] Perry have discovered the paradisiacal primitive man,
puritanically chaste, kindhearted, and essentially peace-loving, a sort of
pacifist who would walk straight up to Geneva and vote for universal
disarmament. For a long time primeval man was denied all reKgion, he
was a benighted heathen, the savage full of superstitions, and then we
had a complete reversal; Andrew Lang discovered primitive monotheism,
the good paters, Schmidt and Koppers, endowed him with high moraUty,
strictly monogamous tendencies, and a completely Roman Cathohc nature.
At times, he was the cunning child of nature, and then again for variety's
sake, M. [Lucien] Levy-Bruhl made him into the prelogical mystic.

Thus we have a myth-making tendency which depicts to us the Golden
Age or the natural state or the original nature of man in very firm outline.

APING THE APE

Most incredible of all, then comes the cry of return to nature and of
following the good example of unspoilt primitive character. No sooner
does Dr. Perry tell us that primitive man is a pacifist than one of the
leading minds of our age, Mr. G. Lowes Dickinson of Cambridge, whose
work on pacifism is really constructive and respectworthy, cannot refrain
from adding the nai've argument of "imitating the primitive pacifist" to
his relevant cogent plea for disarmament. The late Dr. Rivers, a foremost
anthropologist of the past generation and a truly brilHant thinker, ad-
vanced Socialism in England because he imagined that Melanesian savages
were communists. One or two quite intelligent writers on Feminism have
based their reformatory conclusions on the fact of primitive mother-right.
Free love has been advocated for the last fifty years all over the world by
pious references to primitive promiscuity.

All this is, to use an apt American expression, junk. The myth of a
luminous past, however inspiring that may be, cannot be made to lighten
our future, to serve as a beacon towards which humanity has to progress.
It cannot be said too emphatically: First of all, we shall never be able to
reconstruct man's original nature in one single term, or even in two or
three terms; man has always been more or less what he is: a very complex
creature, mixed of mind and spirit, of good and bad, of earthly lust and
divine love, of destructive impulses and desires to build up — in short, the
savage, the primitive, the man-ape, was probably very much as you and
I are. In the second place, whatever primitive man might have been means
nothing, absolutely nothing, to what he is going to become. We might
quite as well preach cannibalism or the killing of aged parents, or the
burning of widows or the carrying of skulls round the neck, because these
customs are very likely to have been practised by the primitive man-ape.

There is now in progress a very decided revulsion among at least one
school of anthropology — the Functional — against this retrospective prec-
edent-making. The Functional school wants to place the science of man
on a really scientific basis. Exactly as the chemist or physicist by ex-
periment and comparative method constructs the laws of inanimate
nature, as the biologist discovers the principles of the process in live
matter, so the anthropologist should establish the laws of sociological and
cultural process. This of course does not mean that the only task of
anthropology is to establish the laws of development on a large scale, that
is, either tracing it back to its origins, or else forecasting what may happen
two thousand years hence. This ambitious task anthropology has under-
taken and it has failed to carry out its undertaking. But even if it con-
fines itself to a much less ambitious task, that of establishing the necessary
relations between the various aspects of culture, religion, law, morality,
social organisation, economics and so on; even if it is limited to showing
the real nature of such institutions as marriage, the family, the state, the
religious association, even then anthropology can supply us with the basis

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

for most sociological and cultural problems of today, yesterday and
tomorrow.

Functional Anthropology is, then, a determined effort to make the
study of man into a science, and this can only be done by establishing the
necessary concatenation between cultural facts and by establishing a law
of culture. And here the anthropologist, and side by side with him the
sociologist and historian, is seriously handicapped. The student of inani-
mate nature, as well as the man who experiments on guinea pigs, amoebas
or plants, has his laboratory, but it is not possible to experiment on human
beings — still less on human societies. We cannot stage mother-right in
Bulgaria and strict patriarchal institutions in Iowa. We cannot have license
and promiscuity in Spain and enforce strict chastity in Portugal: Portugal
would rebel. Papal theocracy, lock, stock and Pius XI, cannot be trans-
planted to New Hampshire and a Soviet regime as a control established in
Massachusetts. The only thing which remains for the social student is the
comparative method. And here anthropology, the comparative study of
cultures over the widest range possible, is a really scientific handmaid of
social science. Are you interested in Communism? You want to know
really whether this is a horrid invention of those devilish Bolsheviks;
whether it originated in the fantasies of Marx, of Engels, or of St. Augus-
tine— or perhaps whether it was invented by Plato. Well, cast a sweeping
glance over Stone Age societies, over the kingdoms of Africa, the Pigmies,
the Middle Cultures — and what will you find? In every human society
there is a fair balance between individual property and the partial sur-
render for the common treasury, in co-operative work, in contributions,
in taxation. "Communism" and "Individualism" are not inventions of
philosophers; they are not black and white antitheses — though in this form
they lend themselves to political vituperation. They are really correlated
economic forces which have always to work conjointly. Functional An-
thropology reveals to us that most of the social tendencies, of the political
issues, of the economic forces, have been at work from the beginning.
They certainly are to be found even in the lowest cultures. They assume
different forms, they work through different mechanisms, but they are
there. And from the way in which they have been working in the past we
may learn something about the way in which they are likely to work
in the future.

Instead, therefore, of preaching a return to precedent. Functional An-
thropology teaches us by the experience of the past all about the working
of human institutions, such as marriage, the family, the state, the co-
operative group, the rehgious community. Functional Anthropology re-
veals to us the universal features of human society. It shows us what the
main business of cultures has been throughout humanity; how this busi-
ness has been carried on; what mechanisms have been at work. Instead of
telling us fairy tales about what had been once upon a time, it simply

APING THE APE

gives us an insight into the working of human society, of human culture,
of the human mind. It is far less amusing — this has to be confessed at
once — than the old fairy-tale anthropology. But science is not one of those
things which makes life exciting. Science, with its sober determinism, with
its less and less pretentious range of questions, with its reduction of every-
thing to a diagrammatic treatment — science has been weeding the ad-
venturous, the romantic, the unexpected, out of life. I shrink and shudder
at the idea of what science will make out of life if it ever becomes applied
to life. Anthropology has been for a long time the stronghold of the
romantic, anti-scientific spirit and that wonderful antiquarianism which
gave us beautiful day-dreams about primitive man. I love the old anthro-
pology, and, alas, have to be one of its destroyers.

Let us return to marriage. Functional Anthropology teaches us that
marriage is as marriage does. It does not, of course, maintain that marriage
has always been exactly as it is now and with us. Marriage has changed
widely. But through all the changes and vicissitudes, all history, all de-
velopment, all geographical setting, the family and marriage still remain
the same twin institutions; they still emerge as a stable group showing
throughout the same fundamental features — a group consisting of father,
of mother and of children, forming a joint household, co-operating
economically, united by a contract and surrounded by religious sanctions
which make the family into a moral unit.

The position which I and other anthropologists working in the Func-
tional spirit and by the Functional method have arrived at is one of
synthesis, though not of compromise. It is so much so that we have all
been misunderstood by either side and accused either as reactionary ob-
scurantists or else as aggressive demoralisers. One or two documents might
be of interest.

Says Professor Edward Sapir, one of America's foremost anthropologists:
"The present sex unrest has been nibbling at more or less reliable informa-
tion reported by anthropologists from primitive communities. Any primi-
tive community that indulges or is said to indulge in unrestricted sex
behaviour is considered an interesting community to hear from." Since
I am one of those who collected this "more or less reliable information"
and have written the "excited books about pleasure-loving . . . Trobriand
Islanders" — to quote the stigmatising expressions of Professor Sapir — I
have to bear part at least of the censure which my learned colleague
metes out to those who use anthropology as a means of perverting the
young. My critic seems to forget that in my "excited books" I have
insisted on the fact that "Trobrianders have as many rules of decency and
decorum as they have liberties and indulgences," and that far from trying
to be "exciting" or unsettling, I have made it clear that the "best way to
approach sexual morality in an entirely different culture is to remember
that the sexual impulse is never entirely free, neither can it ever be com-

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

pletely enslaved by social imperatives." I have certainly not described my
"primitive community" as "indulging in unrestricted sex behaviour,"
but Professor Sapir would appear to class me with the Impuritans and
Anthropological Perverters.

On the other hand, only a few weeks ago a distinguished publicist,
speaking about my opinions on marriage past and present, wrote: "If, as
Professor Malinowski seems to argue, our modern system is so rooted in
the immemorial tradition as to be part of human nature itself — and even
of animal nature, too — then it would be rash to tamper with it lightly,
lest we undermine the whole foundations of society." And the same
publicist labels me as representing the "Fundamentalist attitude" in that
I maintain "that marriage always has been and should be as it is." And yet
another publicist, this time an extreme prophet of Misbehaviourism,
describes the plight of the modern emancipated woman, "who is told by
Professor Malinowski, or some other Adam-and-Eve anthropologist, that
the family is the foundation of human society." Classing me with Dean
Inge, Professor Westermarck and Jix (Mr. Joynson-Hicks, now Lord
Brentford, sometime Home Secretary of Great Britain), he laments that
"the appalling wreckage of human lives which is the outcome of those
fantastic views is beyond computation." And he indicts me among others
in the final anathema: "Classic authorities on the history of human mar-
riage have more to answer for than Spanish Grand Inquisitors. Their
hands are imbrued with blood and tears." Now there may be some comfort
to be had from being hit by both sides, from being alternately labelled as
Arch-Immoralist and Grand Inquisitor of Puritanism: truth is unpleasant
to all who think in extremes, and he who speaks the truth will not be
popular with either side, who believe in having the monopoly. Now it
may be amusing to be misinterpreted, misquoted and cudgelled by any
extremist (though as a matter of fact I should like to add that Professor
Edward Sapir is not an extremist and that his views on marriage, family,
and sex are entirely in agreement with mine, and his slight slap at me I
regard as uncalled for) . But, after all, when you write books you want
them to be not only read and misquoted, but understood. Besides the
flattery of invective I sometimes wish also for the prosaic but satisfying
compliment of sympathetic understanding and assent. So let me indulge
in another day-dream: I shall imagine the Functional Anthropologist sur-
rounded by a misguided but intelligent crowd of modern flappers and
pseudo-Bolshevists, Impuritans and Feminists, Introverts and Misbehav-
iourists. They all listen to the Functional Anthropologist, lap up his words,
take them to heart, and come out wiser and better people. The Modern
Man starts on marriage: "The whole thing hardly seems worth wasting
one's breath over. Your orthodox Christian marriage with its claptrap of
religious junk, vindictive legal interference and coercion is an intolerable

APING THE APE

burden. . . . Are we going to allow this ramshackle affair to strangle
personal happiness, to interfere with social advances? Or shall we finally
put it on a rational basis? There would seem good and fine things to be
jettisoned with it, no doubt. Some of them are probably due to mere
sentimentalising from which it is difficult for us to rid ourselves. Some
are mere Pauline perversions, or survivals from that horrid destructive
Puritanism which had its virtues, but which now has become sheer vice.
Can you give me a single intelligent reason why human affection should
be submitted to law or personal choice to the ceremonial approval of a
bevy of clergymen; or the uniting of personalities be made the object of
an economic bargain?"

"Your arguments," replied the Functional Anthropologist, "have, in
spite of their rhetorical setting, a great deal of truth in them. It is quite
true that the modern law of divorce, let us say, is both immoral and
vindictive. In the majority of cases obviously false evidence has to be
staged in order to dissolve marriages which should be dissolved because
they do not work and cannot work. But the real question is whether we
shall spill the child with the bath, and, because legislation in certain
states of the Union and in certain European countries is silly on one point
or another, whether in order to improve it we shall destroy the family and
marriage."

Absolute monogamy — away with it I

"There is no need to destroy marriage!" the Modern Man replied. "It has
destroyed itself. It is a compound of anachronisms, of survivals. As an
anthropologist, you ought to know it best. Take love and the law. At the
beginning of things love was satisfied to the full measure in primeval
promiscuity, and law did not interfere, since there was no institution of
marriage at all. Under matriarchal conditions, women chose their lovers
but were not submitted to their husbands. This we can and should imitate.
Law became only necessary when under patriarchal tyranny women were
made into chattels and were traded into the possession of the male. What
made everything wrong was the influence of religion — above all, of Chris-
tianity. Primitive marriage is never religious, as Franz Boas has told us:
*The religious sanction of marriage exists in hardly any primitive tribe.' "
"On this point I am forced to dissent from the opinion, even though it
has been given by a real and a great anthropologist like Franz Boas. I
have also emphatically to disagree with him when he tells us that 'the
customs of mankind show that permanent marriage is not based primarily
on the permanence of sexual love between two individuals, but that it is
essentially regulated by economic considerations. Formal marriage is con-
nected with transfer of property, for it is obvious that you would at once
make an attempt to apply it to modern conditions.' "

100 SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

"Certainly," said the Modern Man. "If we want to base modern mar-
riage on love, on which it never has been based before — if we want to
make it into something better than a bargain — we have to destroy the
whole patriarchal tissue of lies and laws, whether bolstered up by St. Paul's
Epistles or the Old Testament, or the writings of Professor Westermarck.
May I quote once more the conclusion of our greatest American anthro-
pologist, whose learning, competence and value you yourself recognise
fully? 'Instability is found as much in modern civilization as in simpler
societies. Man is evidently not an absolutely monogamous being. The
efiforts to force man into absolute monogamy have never been success-
ful. . . .' "

"This is a most unfortunately worded generalization — especially un-
fortunate since it comes from Franz Boas. It is based on the usual dialectic
trick: you erect a straw enemy and destroy him after a short but some-
what inglorious fight. 'Absolute monogamy' is an ideal, and a good ideal at
that, but in my opinion the history of human marriage is not a series of
erroneous and futile efforts at 'forcing man into absolute monogamy.' We
have rather before us a variety of forms, and the study of these tells us
that the fundamental, ever-recurring form of marriage is monogamy in
the sense of an individual legal contract between one man and one woman;
that this fundamental form is the only one which works satisfactorily;
that it is at the base of all the combined forms, including polygyny and
polyandry; and that all evolution tends more and more towards the mo-
nogamous form of marriage.

The five matrimonial errors of anthropology

"Small wonder that anthropology has become discredited in its application
to modern life. The arguments which you have given me, and which are
constantly being used, are one and all based on anthropological fallacies.
It is untrue that marriage ever has been or could have been an exclusively
economic bargain. It is untrue that there are any indications of a primitive
state of wholesale promiscuity. It is untrue that marriage in the past has
ever been in any community a loveless, cold-blooded contract. It is untrue
that there has ever been a pure matriarchal stage. Finally, it is blatantly
false that marriage in any community has lacked reHgious sanctions. I
cannot understand how an anthropologist of the measure of Franz Boas
could have committed himself to such a statement.

"And not only that," continued the Functional Anthropologist. "Hold-
ing this bag of anthropological tricks in one hand, you are not satisfied
with using them consistently, but even as you produce them you juggle
them and turn them either way to suit your argument. At times you
dangle the 'primeval custom' before our eyes as a valuable precedent:
let us have promiscuity, because the man-ape was promiscuous; let us

APING THE APE

101

desentimentalize marriage, because it was not originally a sentimental ar-
rangement; let us abolish coercion because primitive man was free to mate
as he liked. As soon, however, as you take an objection to some institution
or other, you brandish it before us as a repellent relic of savage barbarism.
The economic side of marriage, the coercion of the woman, does not please
you. It is a survival from horrid patriarchal marriage and ought to be
abolished. We must get rid of the superstitions of the Australian aborigines
and the mid-Victorian gentleman, you argue at once. You don't like the
religious side of marriage. It would probably simply be wasting my breath
on you if I wanted to prove that Boas is wrong and that in fact marriage
throughout humanity is essentially a religious sacrament, because you
would simply tell me: *That is another reason for doing away with re-
ligious sanctions. It was good for the superstitious savage, but not for
us enlightened people.* "

Marriage — a cocktail or a symphony?

Somewhat cornered, the Modern Man repUed: "Your argument so far is
mainly negative. But supposing even that you know better than any one
of your predecessors and colleagues, what is your view of marriage? What
morals can you draw from the past for the present and the future?"

"Well, the most important truth is that marriage has always been a
combination, a synthesis of elements. In every form of primitive marriage
there are the elements of love and of free choice, but also economic con-
siderations, usually accompanied by elaborate legal contracts and as-
sociated with religious sanctions. Marriage was always of necessity a
compromise — and a compromise does not give you the full measure of a
snake-proof Garden-of-Eden happiness."

"In other words, your whole philosophy boils down to saying that
marriage is a cocktail of all things, good and bad, pleasant and otherwise,
sweet and bitter. We have to gulp it down — is it as a tonic, or for mixed
pleasure, or perhaps as an appetiser?" asked the Ironical Young Lady.

"A harmony or a symphony or even a cocktail if you like — even a cock-
tail can be good, though I as a good European have never yet condescended
to like any one. But it is not the mixed or compound character of mar-
riage that I stress — it is the permanent constitution of the compound. If
marriage under a variety of conditions has always had this strange combi-
nation of legal coercion as well as of personal choice, there is obviously
something inherently necessary in this combination. It cannot be an
anomaly of Elizabethan Puritanism or the ruHngs of the Council of Trent,
or of mid- Victorian prudery. We are led to enquire into why marriage
should be at the same time a mystic bond of personal aflfection and a
coercive chain of legal ruling. And again, if we find that the biological
urge to mate, which is so often given an extremely wide range of satis-

102

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

faction, still leads people to surrender their personal liberty to the bond of
marriage, surely we must conclude once more that marriage satisfies some
other needs besides that of sexual union.

The return to suttee

"And then," continued the Functional Anthropologist, "this question of a
religious intervention. The anthropologist, however learned, may have his
moments of oblivion. To say that marriage has no religious sanctions in
any primitive community is probably based on the fallacy of identifying
the religious character of marriage with the wedding ceremony. The
wedding act itself is very often disconcertingly simple and 'secular.' I
have myself seen natives of Melanesia taking what is to them a most
momentous step in life by the simple act of sitting together on either
side of a large wooden platter and eating a few baked yams with one
another. But the same people, as soon as the wife became pregnant, went
through a strict discipline of ethical taboos, kept under a religious sanc-
tion. They both became enmeshed in a series of magical performances;
they entered en rapport with the spiritual world of supernatural beings.
When the child was born they had to carry out in virtue of their marriage
contract a series of religious ceremonies soon after the birth and periodically
during the various crises of their offspring's life. Finally, when separated
by death, the survivor had again to document the religious nature of
marriage by acting as chief mourner. And this is the pattern of the
religious aspect of marriage in most communities. But of an exclusively
secular marriage in a primitive community I have never heard — nor can
I conceive of it."

"And what is the moral to be drawn from that?" asked one of the
audience. "Do you want us to return to a fully religious type of marriage
— introduce perhaps suttee — and submit our marriage laws to a new
Grand Inquisition?"

"I do not think so. All my lessons are indirect and not by return to
precedent. The universal religious character of marriage is to me mainly
relevant as a symptom of the high value in which marriage is held by every
community. The main function of religion is to hall-mark certain con-
tracts, certain arrangements; to make them important and ethically bind-
ing. You modern people may have decided completely to jettison formal
rehgion. Have you also discredited all moral attitudes? Have you lost all
sense of value and sanctity? If so, there is no common matter for our dis-
cussion, so I shall assume the contrary. But if you have values left, can
you not understand that the main lesson — and an entirely rational lesson —
to be drawn from anthropology is that the institution of marriage has
had this enormous value to all human communities however primitive?"

"Yes, but what is the raison d'etre of this high value set on marriage?

APING THE APE

103

Have we not done in our modern world with the motives as well as the
forms?"

Flapper v. fetish of sentiment

**Yes,*' added the Flapper, who had been listening and now joined in the
discussion. "We have lost your great fetish of matrimonial sanctity — the
sacred, sentimental love. You have sanctified love by making it into a
forbidden fruit with sex as its core. Sex is the most forbidden part of the
forbidden fruit. With all its sanctity you moralists could never swallow it.
It did stick in your throat — Adam's apple, the symbol of patriarchal
hypocrisy. We have completely transformed love — we have made it into
pleasurable love-making. And there are no precedents to teach us anything.
Your anthropology breaks down completely at this point. Birth control,
the equahty of sexes, economic independence of women, are brand new.
We have to create an entirely new world for the new, free, love."

"But that is an old story." The Functional Anthropologist smiled at the
Flapper. "The oldest story of all — that of the new generation creating
always a new world for the first time. Your experimental love-making
based on equality of sex, on contraception or avoidance of physiological
results, and on economic independence, has a very long history. The
pattern of behaviour which allows a free pre-nuptial unchastity is well
known not only to the anthropologist who has studied the world of islands
scattered over the Pacific, or the African societies, or any part of the
primitive world for that matter, but also to anyone who knows the life
of European peasantry with their 'trial nights,* their 'window visits,' their
finding out not only whether two people are physiologically well suited,
but whether they can produce a child together.

"And the story is always the same," went on the Functional Anthro-
pologist. "In the long run, the young people, free to mate at will, become
tired of change, of mere sexual pleasure, and it grows stale on them
even as petting parties grow stale and sterile after a time. In our com-
munity, since there is a stigma attached to the system, since it very
often goes hand in hand with alcohoHc poisoning and an abnormal life,
many people go under. In a primitive community, where personal sensi-
bilities are lower, where the whole arrangement is traditionally sanctioned,
the process runs smoothly. Young people sow their wild oats gradually
and naturally. They cast off the surfeit of sex with experimental dabbling
in sex, and they gradually find out that erotic approaches only have value
when they are accompanied by a real attachment, by the charm which
comes from congenial personality and the affection which clings to the
right sort of character. And the social system expresses and sanctions this
natural trend of psychological affairs. A liaison of long standing is ex-
pected to mature into marriage."

104

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

The hnportance of being married

"I still can't understand," said the Flapper, impressed but not convinced,
"why these people marry at all."

"There is some surface mystery about it, but if you observe any native
tribe or any European peasants, or even your friends in the free communi-
ties of the Petting Tribe in our culture, you will find the same phenomena.
There is a desire for a full, open, pubKc declaration of the fact that I
and my lover are lovers; that nobody else should interfere between us;
that we have legal rights to one another."

"But that simply is possessive jealousy," said the Flapper, at once roused
into moral indignation and feminine protest as this horrid word, the
symbol of patriarchal tyranny, formed in her speech centres.

"Certainly, if you wish to call it by this name. Jealousy is one of the
most fundamental sentiments of man and woman alike. I have done my
field work in a matriarchal community with as much freedom given to
sexual impulses as anywhere else in the world, with as high position given
to woman and as much economic independence secured to her in marriage
as has ever been recorded — and yet, there, men and women, when really
in love, were morbidly, passionately jealous of each other. Their jealousy
might bend before custom, but it was always there. And since custom
guaranteed exclusive sexual rights only after marriage, two young people,
after they became certain that they loved each other, always wanted to
marry. They wanted to declare their love publicly. They wanted to be
certain of each other's permanent affections. Nothing would satisfy them
but marriage. And marriage gave them also the full status in society.
And this, by the way, is not the exception, but the universal rule among
all primitive communities. A man is not a full member of the tribe before
he marries, and a woman who is a spinster is an anomaly — a monster in
fact. So much so that she does not exist. One of the most profound dif-
ferences between primitive and civilised societies is that there are no un-
married people among the so-called savage and barbarous nations of the
world."

"Where is all this leading to?" asked the Flapper, half puzzled, half
ironical.

"There are several conclusions to be drawn. For the moment I was
trying to show to you that the legal contract — that is, the public act
declaring mutual appropriation — is not a pathological outgrowth of puri-
tanism, since it exists among the most non-puritanical communities. Love,
by its very nature, tends to be mixed up with law. Society — and by this
I don't mean a super-personal being, but the integral of the various moral
and cultural forces embodied in tradition — society then decrees that in
order to be a full member of a tribe a man must marry, and a woman must
become a wife. And this traditional force of law, order and moraHty

APING THE APE

105

decrees also that marriage must be distinct, sharply demarcated from an
ordinary liaison."

"What do you mean by this?"

"Weil, in the first place, marriage gives entirely different privileges to
both partners. Even when, as in the various non-puritanical communities,
two people are known to live together as lovers and fully allowed to do so,
they do not receive any guarantee of permanence and exclusiveness until
they are married. In the second place, the act of marriage changes what
was a simple, personal relationship into a sociological event. Marriage
usually implies a considerable amount of economic contribution from the
family of either consort and the establishment of an independent house-
hold, of which the man becomes the master and woman the mistress.
Marriage thus gives to man and woman a sphere of action, of influence,
which they desire to have, but — and this is the most important thing to
remember — in this new establishment both partners have to work together.
They know it well, and they chose each other on account of their compati-
bility of character. The blending of sexual attraction with the deeper
values of personality lies in the very nature of marriage.'*

Bigger and better petting parties

"But," said the Flapper pensively, "what you seem to advocate there is
Bigger and Better petting parties on the Trobriand pattern. Shall we have
our marriage organised by allowing young people to mate promiscuously
and gradually to select each other by trial and error? If this is your argu-
ment you don't seem to differ profoundly from the Misbehaviourists
against whom you seem to have been inveighing."

"If I were to advise you to imitate my Trobrianders or any other
savage tribe it would only be if you chose to adopt their whole cultural
outlook, their limited range of emotions, the coarseness and one-sidedness
of their physiological equipment. In fact, knowing that you are racially
not a Trobriander I should say that you would run the risk of moral and
emotional bankruptcy if you were to imitate them. You modern people
preach the building up of human personality and yet you wish to destroy
marriage, the relationship in which personality is best expressed; and
parenthood, the relationship in which the building up of new personalities
is vested."

The anthropologist y the sensible womany birth control

Here, at this last sentence, a stray figure entered into the discussion — a
lonely figure, the Sensible Woman.

"It seems strange," she said, "that, speaking as an anthropologist, you
only now touch upon what to me seems the capital point in marriage —
that is, children. Surely you can't discuss the relationship of human
mating without thinking of its fruits."

106

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

"This," replied the Anthropologist, "is quite true. One of the most
mysterious rules of primitive life is that an unmarried woman must not
become pregnant, even as we in our society — or let us better say in that
of our mothers or grandmothers — would always condone more easily a
'false step' if it did not lead to its natural consequences. Savages usually
allow as much sexual Hberty as you like, but penalize premarital preg-
nancy."

"Surely" (here the Birth Control Expert became interested) "this must
mean that they know of some means of contraception?"

"Not necessarily. In my own field work I came in contact with com-
munities where unmarried motherhood was very much looked askance at.
Remarkably enough, very few girls conceived before marriage, and yet
I am absolutely sure that they knew of no contraceptives."

"How do you explain it?"

"I cannot explain it. I know that abortion is sometimes practised which
stops short pre-nuptial pregnancy. The natives are not aware of the
physiological consequences of intercourse. They explain pregnancy as due
to spiritual influences, and against this physiological background they
construct a plausible theory of how an ancestral spirit waits until the girl
is married. They also have a vague feeling that pre-nuptial conception is
a punishment for too much wantonness. But in reality the only explana-
tion that I can offer is that when a young girl from maturity, or even
before, practises promiscuous intercourse, she does not conceive. When,
with marriage, she is confined to one male, fertility again returns. In some
communities, such as those of Polynesia, I am told, rude primitive contra-
ceptives are known, and there certainly abortion is practised on an exten-
sive scale. In other tribes the erotic interests of unmarried people are
satisfied without leading to full consummation. In other tribes again,
the association between marriage and pregnancy is brought about by the
most direct logical, and let us add, charitable rule. As soon as the woman
conceives she has to be married by her lover. Since in most of these com-
munities children are an asset and not a liability this rule is enforced by
positive inducement and not by penal sanctions.

"But right through a whole range of human societies the principle of
legitimacy, the rule that child-bearing requires a male partner, the legal
head and guardian of the children, is universal. This rule is really the basis
of family life. It declares that the group of mother and child is not com-
plete without the male; that the full procreative group is the family con-
sisting of husband, wife and children."

The masculine matriarch

At this point the formidable figure of the Professing Feminist closed in
upon the discussion:

"All this might have been very well among savages, but we modern

APING THE APE

107

women want above all to eliminate the male. If we choose we still shall
have children, but they will be anonymous babies by an anonymous
father."

''Then you want," replied presently the Anthropologist, "a return to the
glorious tradition of the matriarchal past. You want to return to that
feminine society conjured up by the creative imagination of Bachofen and
recently presented in a rehashed and somewhat garbled form by that
publicistic, pseudo-prophet of false feminism. Dr. Briffault."

Here the Sensible Woman interposed: ''No, we modern women aspire to
real feminism. The man-aping feminist — the Masculine Matriarch — pays
only lip-service to womanhood. In reality she wants to enslave us to the
masculine ideal. We true feminists don't try to raise the dignity of woman
by eliminating her essential roles in society. On the contrary, we want to
secure her a position in modern life in that capacity in which she need
not imitate man any more than she can be imitated by him. We want the
woman, as the mother, to dictate some at least of our new laws and new
ideals."

"With this point of view I am fully in sympathy," hastened to add the
Functional Anthropologist. "Some women at least will still desire to be-
come mothers — not all, perhaps, but quite enough to prevent the disap-
pearance of our race. Let us concentrate our attention on them. Will
these women desire also to look after their own children — to be real
mothers — or will they be prepared to hand over the fruit of their love,
of their suffering, the most precious part of their bodily self and of their
sentiments, to some state institution, to a communistic baby farm?

"The teaching of genuine anthropology is that the whole idea of group
marriage and group maternity is preposterous. On the contrary, one of
the most significant quaint and incredible customs of primitive man is
the couvade, a custom according to which the husband at childbirth
mimics the physiological disabilities of his wife — goes to bed swooning, his
limbs swaddled, demanding tender cares, potions and a whole show of
anxiety, while his wife briskly gets up from childbed, takes up domestic
duties, and even looks after him. The couvade in its outspoken forms is
scattered over the world, but not universal. What is universal is the strict
solidarity of husband and wife during gestation, at childbirth and after-
wards. The husband shares in his wife's pregnancy taboos. He plays an
important part at childbirth, warding off the dangers, counteracting the
evil magic. And he takes an active share in the tender care of the infant."

"And what is the lesson of all this?" snorted the Aggressive Feminist.

"The lesson is that the legal 'shackles,' that all the economic burdens
and habilities, that all the apparatus of a united household — that all this
is not an artificial and unnecessary ingredient of modern marriage. Love
and courtship, as we have seen, lead naturally to permanent cohabitation
based on a legal contract. This contract is necessary because love naturally

108

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

leads to the production of children, and children, when produced, must be
cared for, cannot be thrown on the rubbish heap or thrown onto the
communal care of the Tribe or Society. The mother is the person physi-
ologically designated to do this, to look after it tenderly, to give it all
that it needs in nourishment, in emotion, in education, and the man as-
sociated with her in love-making has also an innate emotional response
which is culturally affirmed in these pregnancy and post-natal observances
which we have been discussing. The strong sentiment of paternity makes
him respond naturally and take over the role of joint partner and pro-
tector of his pregnant wife and later of her offspring. Thus we have
what you like to call legal coercion, and what more correctly is mutual
security due to an open and public contract inevitably associated with
the full expression of sexual love. But man cannot live by love alone —
still less can woman and her children. An economic basis is necessary for
the family. Marriage is inevitably an economic partnership for the com-
mon running and provision of the household. Economics is not the prime
mover, but an inevitable element of marriage."

"And sure enough — as I had expected you to do — in your argument
you have dropped out religion," chipped in the Modern Man, not without
irony.

"Religion comes in, as it naturally must, wherever human relations are
put to great emotional strain, while, at the same time, based on strong
passions and emotional tendencies. Laws and customs with their sanctions
and coercive forces can compel people to carry out definite tangible ele-
mentary services, but law cannot penetrate the nooks and corners of
sentimental life. Definite moral laws based on supernatural sanctions sup-
ply the only suitable force on which marriage and parenthood can be
based. If we take religion in the widest sense — that is, a system of values
based on deep conviction — all personal human relations of this stable
and integral nature will have to be submitted to religion."

Behaviourist: "You have been speaking all the time as if Behaviourism
had not come to change all our outlook on human nature. You speak of
paternal instinct as well as maternal instinct. We know now that all this
is nonsense. J. B. Watson has convincingly proved that there are only two
real instincts: the shrinking from contact with a frog and the reflex of
clutching when a baby is dropped from a height of twenty yards into a
cold bath."

"I am not quite convinced yet by the gospel of the Behaviourists," re-
plied the Anthropologist. "But I did not speak of any instincts. Nothing
is as destructive of sound psychological thinking as either to believe that
all these are 'instincts' or else to believe that human nature is indefinitely
plastic. There may be innate tendencies which, under any social and
cultural conditions, inevitably integrate into certain patterns. My reading
of human history is that the highly complex and certainly not instinctive

APING THE APE

109

attitudes of individual maternity and individual fatherhood are such in-
evitable patterns or sentiments. I believe that they are deeply correlated
with the structure, not only of our society and Christian culture, but of
every society that ever has existed. I find that it is in the inevitable
concatenation of sexual attraction with deeper personal attraction, desire
to mate with the desire to bring forth children, all the physiological facts
of parenthood with the emotional response to children — I believe that it
is in this concatenation that the strength of marriage and the family lies.
Why, look all around us. With all the facilities of safe and easy satisfac-
tion of lust, with all the preaching about freedom and the need to be
happy, with all the real economic independence of men and women — why,
people should avoid marriage like pestilence. Statistics ought to register
not only a falling birth rate, but the disappearance of registered mar-
riages. Do we find anything of the sort? On the contrary. The mystery
of people still marrying — and divorcing too, certainly, but remarrying
again — people having children, people submitting to all this terrible evil
of married life — this is the real problem, and the answer to the problem I
think I have indicated. You will have to give it yourselves from your
personal experiences and actions."

Modern hetairism

Here a new figure entered the Hsts, the intelligent and level-headed Man
of the World:

"On the whole, I tend to agree with you. But this is not very helpful
yet — not to me, at least. Your conclusions are conservative and so is all
my personal bias, but after all we have to recognize that things have
changed. You have spoken yourself about the fact that the savages tried
love and mating in a way which does not recommend itself to our tastes.
Where should we move as regards the mere fact of love and sexual rela-
tions? You have also indicated that at one point at least there is an un-
precedented change in our community. No savages tolerate the bachelor
and the spinster: there are no unmarried people. This I believe, not only
on your authority but from all I have heard, to be exactly true. But we
have now large sections of our community who remain unmarried. What
about them? Are we going to preach to them simply that marriage is
the only goal and the only satisfaction of instinctive drives — that the
family is the best? They have had this preaching for a long time, and
now there are good grounds for assuming that the teaching will gradually
lose influence. We have another tendency in our modern times — a tendency
less established so far, in fact without any rights of citizenship, but a
pronounced tendency nevertheless — I mean the recognition that some
people are not attracted by the other sex at all, but must find happiness
in homosexual friendships. What have you got to say about this problem?"

"I am quite prepared to take up your challenge. In fact I think you

110

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

have set the problem in absolutely the correct terms. I believe that, with
reference to the whole business of procreation, we are rapidly progressing
towards what might be called a specific stratification by innate endow-
ment, by the balance between passion and sentiment and by the relation
between emotional life and what might be called constructive ambition.
I think in the first place — and I have already indicated it — that the
gradual absorption of human personality by intellectual work, by political
constructive ambitions, by the mere interest in the technique of modern
culture, I believe that all this has relegated the physiological interests to a
secondary place. At least, these physiological interests are directly in con-
flict with the active life of a man or a woman immersed in civilization.

"I think that here again, as in every problem which has to do with
reproduction, women must be considered first. There are now some women
who either have not enough initial interest in maternity or early become
absorbed in other pursuits, who do not want to become mothers. Should
they be debarred from sex? I personally should answer in the negative. I
think that such women have the full right to be happy in their own way.
Anyhow, what is the use of arguing about it. Unless we instituted a
morality police which would employ half the population of the world to
spy on the other half's private doings, unless we instituted key-hole peep-
ing and dirty linen nosing legislation, compared with which the prohibi-
tion laws are supremely logical and easily enforceable, unless we prosti-
tuted the state in order to protect prostitution and penalize free love, we
should be for ever powerless to deal with the free sexual life of the inde-
pendent woman. We do not expect the modern bachelor to be chaste and
innocent, a St. Joseph or St. Stanislas. We have not many illusions — still
fewer moral indignations — about the actual virginity of the modern
latch-key girl. The class of people who can and do carry on free love al-
ready does exist."

"What do you think of Judge Lindsey's 'companionate marriage'?"
asked the Flapper.

"Personally I believe that the institutional changes which go under this
label are the soundest. I admire Judge Ben B. Lindsey as a staunch fellow-
conservative. The advantage of companionate marriage is that it repre-
sents the institutionahzed, straightforward, honest form of what is al-
ready going on in a clandestine and therefore dishonest and uncontrollable
manner. Companionate marriage would also allow young people to test the
chances of making a success of real marriage. But even the companionate
marriage imposes shackles and introduces difficulties which the extreme
type of bachelor or spinster psychology would like to eschew.

Stratified morality

"I believe that in due course what will happen is a change in our moral
outlook. We shall introduce what might be called stratified morahty as

APING THE APE

111

well as stratified institutions. The reproductive group — that is, men and
women who are prepared to carry on the race, to look after the children
and to lead the fullest physiological life — will, I believe, have the premium
of natural virtue. That is, they will achieve the fullest measure of human
happiness. Yet, with all this, the reproductive group will claim special
privileges. Already now there is — to start at the crudest end — discrimi-
native taxation against unmarried people in some countries. In this con-
text I am prepared to give three cheers for Mussolini, small as is our men-
tal and emotional affinity in most other matters. The group of people who
need modern conditions can form Haisons and refuse to accept any conse-
quences. They will have to be submitted to greater taxation, to higher
exactions of public services and, perhaps, to certain political and social
disabilities. I hope they will. Finally, if the claims of the homosexuals are
justified, there should be laws which allow them to live happily within
a sphere of arrangements in which they are protected from the inevitable
odium of the normal sections and at the same time not tempted to infect
the others.

"The greatest difficulty for the future which I foresee is some sort of
boundaries or isolating layers which would protect the several types
stratified by reference to reproduction from each other. For there is no
doubt that monogamous morality suffers by contact with the ethics of
free love and is driven into retaliating in turn with scorn and moral
abuse, with attempts at puritanical police measures, with censorship and
the brandishing of taboos. Both sides have legitimate grievances. Is it
possible for them to come to terms?"

Facts V, a fooVs paradise

"What you say here,'* rejoined the Man of the World, "is no doubt true
enough. But do you imagine three states within the state or three organ-
ized groups within each society — the Reproductive Kingdom, the Free
Love Republic, and the Homosexual Soviets? This seems to me fantastic.*'
"No," answered the Anthropologist, "you take me too concretely and
literally. I only want to draw your attention to certain facts and ask the
question. Are we going to live in a fool's paradise and preach the absolute
sanctity of monogamy, brand contraception as ^criminal practices,' talk
about the *new and utterly perverse morality' when the shghtest departure
from the rigorous canons of Christian marriage is meant, and stupify our
moral conscience by this sort of talk while the 'hateful abominations' are
going on all around us, and are going on without truly injuring any-
body's health, happiness, digestion or spiritual integrity? The terms of
invective I have borrowed, as you no doubt recognise, from the last
Encyclical Letter of my friend Pius XI. I am afraid I cannot commend
him for this latest production of his. This ostrich poUcy will prevent us

112

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

from seeing clearly two or three points on which I have insisted. First
of all, namely, that the business of reproduction requires a well-estab-
Hshed and safely legalized institution of family and marriage. In the
second place, that this institution in modern conditions does need addi-
tional privileges and an additional bolstering, not only by nice words,
but by definite discriminative enactments in its favour. And finally, that
there is need for some sort of protective tolerance all round in order to
prevent the spread of the infection of moral censure and the infection of
moral laxity from one camp to the other."

Fed up with democracy

"But are you not working directly against all the modern trend towards
levelling, which is towards complete uniformity — towards one standard
for everybody and everything?"

"I think this tendency is already beginning to spend itself. Democracy
has not made the world safe for us to live in. It is difficult to imagine
even now the same social circle embracing Al Capone and Mahatma
Gandhi, D. H. Lawrence and Jix, Henry Ford and Stahn. The driving
force of democratic levelling was the abolition, first of all, of hereditary
privileged classes, and later of distinctions by wealth and by inherited
economic privilege. The levelling has gone too far, beyond the limits of
fairness and decency, of justice and real needs. The levelling has degraded
man to a spare part in the senseless machinery. The revolt against it must
come. Wq are in fact stratified by taste, by culture, by temperament. I
prefer the Viennese Waltz, you prefer the vulgar ragtimes, and a third
man may prefer a symphony of Beethoven. Shall we all be compelled to
endure the endless drone of international jazz? Can we not have each our
own circle and our own institutions in which we can exercise our tastes?
The uniformity of fashion, of food and drink (or its absence), the uni-
formity introduced by the mass production of the cheapest or 'best'
brands of everything has attacked and perhaps hopelessly destroyed any
differentiation in externals. Are we going to allow this destructive levelling
to enter into the most personal of our interests? Are we all going to be
made promiscuous by command, or monogamous by law? My belief is
that in its very nature marriage is fundamental and permanent, but
marriage will never be easy. There is not one simple formula for making
it perfect. Whether you follow Bertrand Russell or St. Paul, whether you
believe in Judge Lindsey or in St. Joseph, you always have to fight your
own personal battle. But as an institution for the regulation of the re-
productive process marriage will, I believe, win the day. But with all due
deference to traditional morality I see forces in the modern world which
will demand an independent and just treatment of unmarried love and
perhaps even of homosexual love side by side with the standardized insti-

APING THE APE

113

tutions. When they receive this just and fair treatment the now rebellious
classes may, I hope, become less aggressive and less destructive to what
is to me most valuable in human society: reproduction, marriage, the
family and the home."

iiiiiiii 5 iiiniiiiiiiiiiiii

PIONEERS IN THE STUDY OF SEX AND MARRIAGE

illl

SIGMUND FREUD

Psycho-analysis and anthropology

The infection by psycho-analysis of the neighbouring fields of science —
notably that of anthropology, folklore, and sociology — has been a very
rapid and somewhat inflammatory process. The votaries of Freud, or
some among them, have displayed in their missionary zeal an amount of
dogmatism and of aggressiveness not calculated to allay the prejudice
and suspicion which usually greet every new extension of their theories.
Some of their critics, on the other hand, go so far as to dismiss all anthro-
pological contributions of Freud and his school as "utterly preposterous'*
and "obviously futile," as "an intrigue with Ethnology which threatens
disaster to both parties," as "a striking demonstration of reductio ad
absurdum." ^ This is a harsh judgment and it carries much weight, coming
from one by no means hostile to psycho-analysis and thoroughly well
acquainted with anthropological problems, especially those discussed by
Freud and his school. This seems the right moment to consider impartially,
without enthusiasm or prejudice, the scope, importance, and value of
Freud's contribution to anthropology.

Through the initiative and under the direction of Prof. [C. G.] Selig-
man, who at that time was engaged in practical psycho-analysis of war
neuroses, I have been able to apply some of Freud's conclusions directly
to savage psychology and customs, while actually engaged in field-work
among the natives of Eastern New Guinea.

This Letter to the Editor appeared in Nature, November 3, 1923 (Vol. 112, No.
2818), pp. 650-51, and is reprinted by permission.

*Prof. G. Elliot Smith, in Rivers's Psychology and Politics, 1923, pp. 141-45.

PIONEERS IN THE STUDY OF SEX AND MARRIAGE

115

Freud's fundamental conception of the Oedipus complex contains a
sociological as well as a psychological theory. The psychological theory
declares that much, if not all of human mental life has its root in infantile
tendencies of a "libidinous" character, repressed later on in childhood by
the paternal authority and the atmosphere of the patriarchal family life.
Thus there is formed a "complex" in the unconscious mind of a parricidal
and "matrogamic" nature. The sociological implications of this theory
indicate that throughout the development of humanity there must have
existed the institution of individual family and marriage, with the father
as a severe, nay, ferocious patriarch, and with the mother representing
the principles of affection and kindness. Freud's anthropological views
stand and fall with Westermarck's theory of the antiquity and permanence
of individual and monogamous marriage. Freud himself assumes the ex-
istence, at the outset of human development, of a patriarchal family with
a tyrannical and ferocious father who repressed all the claims of the
younger men.^ With the hypothesis of a primitive promiscuity or group
marriage, Freud's theories are thoroughly incompatible, and in this they
have the support, not only of Westermarck's classical researches, but also
of the most recent contributions to our knowledge of primitive sexual life.

When we come to examine in detail the original constitution of the
human family — not in any hypothetical primeval form, but as we find it
in actual observation among present-day savages — some difficulties emerge.
We find, for example, that there is a form of matriarchal family in which
the relations between children and progenitors do not exist in the typical
form as required by Freud's hypothesis of the Oedipus complex. Taking
as an example the family as found in the coral archipelagoes of Eastern
New Guinea, where I have studied it, the mother and her brother possess
in it all the legal potestas. The mother's brother is the "ferocious matri-
arch," the father is the affectionate friend and helper of his children. He
has to win for himself the friendship of his sons and daughters, and is
frequently their amicable ally against the principle of authority repre-
sented by the maternal uncle. In fact, none of the domestic conditions
required for the sociological fulfilment of the Oedipus complex, with its
repressions, exist in the Melanesian family of Eastern New Guinea, as I
shall show fully in a book shortly to be published on the sexual life and
family organisation of these natives.

Again, the sexual repression within the family, the taboo of incest, is
mainly directed towards the separation of brother and sister, although it
also divides mother and son sexually. Thus we have a pattern of family
life in which the two elements decisive for psycho-analysis, the repressive
authority and the severing taboo, are "displaced," distributed in a man-

''Cf. Totem and Taboo, 1918, Chap. IV, 5, and Massen Psychologie und Ich-Analyse
[Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, 1922], Chap. X.

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SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

ner different from that found in the patriarchal family. If Freud's gen-
eral theory is correct, there ought to be also a change in the thwarted
desires; the repressed wish formation ought to receive a shape different
from the Oedipus complex.

This is as a matter of fact what happens. The examination of dreams,
myths, and of the prevalent sexual obsessions reveals indeed a most re-
markable confirmation of Freudian theories. The most important type of
sexual mythology centres round stories of brother-sister incest. The mythi-
cal cycle which explains the origin of love and love magic attributes its
existence to an act of incest between brother and sister. There is a notable
absence of the parricidal motive in their myth. On the other hand the
motive of castration comes in, and it is carried out not on the father but
on the maternal uncle. He also appears in other legendary cycles as a
villainous, dangerous, and oppressive foe.

In general I have found in the area of my studies an unmistakable cor-
relation between the nature of family and kinship on one hand and the
prevalent "complex" on the other, a complex which can be traced in
many manifestations of the folklore, customs, and institutions of these
natives.

To sum up, the study of savage life and some reflection on Freud's
theories and their application to anthropology have led me to the convic-
tion that a great deal of these theories requires modification and in its
present form will not stand the test of evidence — notably the theory of
lib/do, the exaggeration of infantile sexuality, and the manner in which
*'sexual symbolisation" is dealt with. The character of the argumentation
and the manner and mannerisms of exposition moreover often contain
such glaring surface absurdities and show such lack of anthropological
insight that one cannot wonder at the impatience of a specialist, such as
expressed in the remarks of Prof. Elliot Smith quoted above. But with all
this, Freud's contribution to anthropology is of the greatest importance
and seems to me to strike a very rich vein which must be followed up.
For Freud has given us the first concrete theory about the relation be-
tween instinctive life and social institution. His doctrine of repression
due to social influence allows us to explain certain typical latent wishes
or ^'complexes," found in folklore, by reference to the organisation of a
given society. Inversely it allows us also to trace the pattern of instinctive
and emotional tendencies in the texture of the social fabric. By making
the theories somewhat more elastic, the anthropologist can not only apply
them to the interpretation of certain phenomena, but also in the field he
can be inspired by them in the exploration of the difficult borderland be-
tween social tradition and social organisation. How fruitful Freud's
theories are in this respect I hope to demonstrate clearly in the pending
publication previously mentioned.

PIONEERS IN THE STUDY OF SEX AND MARRIAGE

117

llil

EDWARD WESTERMARCK

Sexual life and marriage among primitive mankind

Comparative sociology, in many of its branches, started with very simple
and homely concepts, and now, after a career of imaginative and some-
what sensational spinning of hypotheses, we find it returning in its latest
developments to the position of common sense. The subject of family and
marriage, of their origins and evolution, epitomises such a typical course
of sociological speculation. In the views about the human family, there
was first the uncritical assumption that the family was the nucleus of
human society; that monogamous marriage has been the prototype of all
varieties of sex union; that law, authority and government are all derived
from patriarchal power; that the State, the Tribe, economic co-operation
and all other forms of social association have gradually grown out of
the small group of blood relatives, issued from one married couple, and
governed by the father. This theory satisfied common sense, supplied an
easily imaginable course of natural development, and was in agreement
with all the unquestioned authorities, from the Bible to Aristotle.

But some sixty years ago, among the many revolutions in scientific
thinking and method, the family theory of society seemed to have received
its death-blow. The independent researches of Bachofen, Morgan and
McLennan seemed to prove beyond doubt, by the study of survivals
and ethnographic phenomena, by methods of linguistics, comparative
study and antiquarian reconstruction, that the whole conception of pri-
meval monogamous marriage and early human family was nothing but
a myth. Primitive humanity, they said, lived in loosely organised hordes,
in which an almost complete lack of sexual regulation, a state of promis-
cuity, was the usage and law. This, the authors of this school concluded,
can be seen from many survivals, from the analysis of classificatory sys-
tems of relationship, and from the prevalence of matrilineal kinship and
matriarchate. Thus, instead of the primitive family we have a horde;
instead of marriage, promiscuity; instead of paternal right, the sole in-
fluence of the mother and of her relatives over the children. Some of the
leaders of this school constructed a number of successive stages of sexual
evolution through which humanity was supposed to have passed. Starting
from promiscuity, mankind went through group marriage, then the so-
called consanguineous family or Punalua, then polygamy, till, in the

This article was a review of The History of Human Marriage by Edward
Westermarck, and appeared in Nature, Yol. 109, No. 273 8 (April 22, 1922), pp.
126-30, and is reprinted by permission.

lis

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

highest civihsations, monogamous marriage was reached as the final prod-
uct of development. Under this scheme of speculations, the history of
human marriage reads like a sensational and somewhat scandalous novel,
starting from a confused but interesting initial tangle, redeeming its un-
seemly course by a moral denouement, and leading, as all proper novels
should, to marriage, in which "they lived happily ever after."

After the first triumphs of this theory were over, there came, however,
a reaction. The earhest and most important criticism of these theories
arose out of the very effort to maintain them.

In the middle eighties of last century, a young and then inexperienced
Finnish student of anthropology started to add his contribution to the
views of Bachofen and Morgan. In the course of his work, however, the
arguments for the new and then fashionable theories began to crumple
in his hands, and indeed to turn into the very opposite of their initial
shape. These studies, in short, led to the first publication by Prof. Wester-
marck in 1891 of his History of Human Marriage, in which the author
maintained that monogamous marriage is a primeval human institution,
and that it is rooted in the individual family; that matriarchate has not
been a universal stage of human development; that group marriage never
existed, still less promiscuity, and that the whole problem must be ap-
proached from the biological and psychological point of view, and though
with an exhaustive, yet with a critical application of ethnological evi-
dence. The book with its theories arrested at once the attention both of
all the specialists and of a wider public, and it has survived these thirty
years, to be reborn in 1922 in an amplified fifth edition of threefold the
original size and manifold its original value. For since then Prof. Wester-
marck has developed not only his methods of inductive inference by
writing another book of wider scope and at least equal importance,
Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, but he has also acquired a first-
hand knowledge of savage races by years of intensive ethnographic field
work in Morocco, work which has produced already numerous and most
valuable records.

Where does the problem stand now? First of all, the contest is not
ended yet, and divergencies of opinion obtain on some fundamental points,
while controversy has not lost much of its uncompromising tone. But the
issues have narrowed down somewhat. There is no longer a question of
accepting the naive theory which regarded family as a kind of universal
germ of all social evolution; nor, on the other hand, does any competent
sociologist take very seriously the fifteen successive stages of promiscuity,
group marriage, Punalua marriage, etc. Prof. Westermarck and his school
do not maintain the rigidly patriarchal theory, and they are fully aware
of the importance of matrilineal descent, of the maternal uncle's authority,
and of the various kinship anomalies connected with matriliny. The
classificatory terms of relationship are, moreover, not considered by Prof.

PIONEERS IN THE STUDY OF SEX AND MARRIAGE

119

Westermarck as mere terms of address, but as important indications of
status.

The representatives of the opposite school had also to make some con-
cessions, though rather reluctantly and grudgingly. Scarcely any one
nowadays would be so irreverent towards our ape-like ancestors and
ancestresses as to suspect them of living in a general state of promiscuity.
But there is still a formidable list of names, among them some of the
most eminent representatives of modern anthropology, quoted by Prof.
Westermarck (Vol. 1, p. 103 «.), who consider primitive promiscuity as
"not improbable," "plausible," "by no means untenable," and use this
hypothesis constantly as a skeleton-key to open all questions of sex. Group
marriage is still, though somewhat faintheartedly, affirmed to have existed,
and even some savages are forced to live up to their evil reputation —
in the speculations and bare assertions of some writers. The Punalua
family leads an even more shadowy existence, merging into a combined
polyandry and polygamy. The most tenacious survival of the Bachofen-
Morgan-McLennan theories seems to be the kinship terms, themselves a
most fecund breeding-place for all kinds of survival theories.

Thus Prof. Westermarck in this new edition is not altogether relieved
of the necessity of dealing with the hypothesis of promiscuity, and in
chapters iii-ix he examines the various classes of evidence adduced in its
favour. There is a number of statements affirming directly the existence
of promiscuous conditions among this or that tribe or people. Some of
them come from garrulous and credulous writers of antiquity and have
to be discarded as pure fables; others, from modern travellers, equal them
in untrustworthiness and futility. On this point no one will certainly
controvert the author when he says "that it would be difficult to find a
more untrustworthy collection of statements." The investigation then
turns to that remarkable group of ethnological facts — jus primae noctis^
licence of festive and religious character, prenuptial and orgiastic sexual
intercourse — ^in which the powerful instinct of sex, curbed and fettered
by social regulations, takes, in its own time, revenge on man by dragging
him down to the level of a beast. Prof. Westermarck fully admits the
importance and extent of these phenomena; his survey indeed shows the
extreme range and the often astounding perversity of these deviations.
But he declines resolutely to see in any of these facts a survival of pristine
promiscuity, for in all cases the facts reveal most powerful motive forces,
and can be attributed to definite psychological and social causes. The
theory of survival is moreover irreconcilable with the fact that we find,
side by side with Hcentious tribes, savages who maintain strict chastity;
that some of the most primitive ones are virtuous, whilst the most luxuri-
ant growth of licence is found in more advanced communities; that,
finally, civilisation instead of abolishing these phenomena only modifies
them.

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SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

The chapters on customary and regulated sexual licence are full of
penetrating suggestions, and the facts, skilfully marshalled, are made to
speak for themselves, and will supply a lasting compendium for students
of sexual psychology. But what appears most valuable in this, not less
than in other parts of the work, are the methods and implications of the
argument. Prof. Westermarck has an abhorrence of the now fashionable
tendency of explaining the whole by its part, the essential by the irrele-
vant, the known by the unknown. He refuses to construct out of meagre
and insufficient evidence a vast, hypothetical building, through the nar-
row windows of which we would have to gaze upon reality, and see only
as much of it as they allow. The obvious, common-sense and essentially
scientific way of proceeding is to get firm hold of the fundamental aspects
of human nature — in this case the psychology of sex, the laws of primitive
human grouping, the typical beliefs and sentiments of savage people —
and, in the light of this, to analyse each fact as we meet it. But to con-
struct the unverifiable hypotheses of primitive promiscuity and interpret
facts in terms of figments is, as Prof. Westermarck shows, a method
which leads nowhere and lures us from the true scientific path.

Some of the other chapters of Prof. Westermarck's book give us an-
other approach to the psychology of sex and to the theory of human
marriage. Sex is a most powerful instinct — one of the modern schools of
psychology tries to derive from it almost all mental process and socio-
logical crystallisation. However this may be, there is no doubt that mascu-
line jealousy (chap, ix), sexual modesty (chap, xii), female coyness
(chap, xiv), the mechanism of sexual attraction (chap, xv and xvi) and
of courtship (chap, xiii) — all these forces and conditions made it necessary
that even in the most primitive human aggregates there should exist
powerful means of regulating, suppressing and directing this instinct.
There is no doubt that all the psychological forces of human sexual pas-
sion, as well as the conditions of primitive life, must have tended to pro-
duce a primeval habit of individual pairing. We have to imagine a man
and a woman forming more or less permanent unions which lasted until
well after the birth of the offspring. This, Prof. "Westermarck develops in
the first chapter of his work. A union between man and wife, based on
personal affection springing out of sexual attachment, based on eco-
nomic conditions, on mutual services, but above all on a common relation
to the children, such a union is the origin of the human family. This pri-
meval habit, according to the "tendency of habits to become rules of
conduct," develops with time into the institution of family and marriage,
and "marriage is rooted in the family, rather than the family in marriage."

Marriage, indeed, right through the book, is conceived in the correct
sociological manner, that is, as an institution based on complex social
conditions. The greatest mistake of the writers of the opposing school —
a mistake which, I think, they have not corrected even in the most recent

PIONEERS IN THE STUDY OF SEX AND MARRIAGE

121

publications — is their identification of marriage with sexual appropria-
tion. Nor is this pitfall easy to avoid. For us, in our own society, the
exclusiveness of sexual rights is the very essence of marriage. Hence we
think of marriage in terms of individual sexual appropriation, and project
this concept into native societies. When we find, therefore, groups of peo-
ple living in sexual communism, as undoubtedly happens among a few
tribes within a limited compass, we have a tendency at once to jump to
conclusions about "group marriage."

To the majority of savages, however, sexual appropriation is by no
means the main aspect of marriage. To take one example, there are the
Trobriand Islanders, studied by the present writer, who live in the greatest
sexual laxity, are matrilineal, and possess an institution which is probably
the nearest approach to "group marriage" that exists or could ever have
existed. Indeed, it resembles it much more, I think, than does the cele-
brated pirrauru of the Dieri in Central Australia. These natives satisfy
their sexual inclinations through all forms of licence, regulated and ir-
regular, and then settle down to marry, decidedly not only or even
mainly to possess a partner in sex, but chiefly out of personal attachment,
in order to set up a household with its economic advantages, and last, not
least, to rear children. The institution of individual marriage and family
among them is based on several other foundations besides sex, though sex
— naturally — enters into it.

Space does not allow me to follow Prof. Westermarck into his dialectic
contests with the most eminent of his contemporaries — with Sir James
Frazer and Dr. Rivers about the kinship terms (chap, vi) ; with Sir James
Frazer and Mr. Hartland on matriliny (chap, viii) ; and with all of them,
as well as Spencer and Gillen, on group marriage (chap, xxvi) . In all these
arguments we find the same extensive use of ethnological material, the
same breadth of view and moderation of doctrine, above all, the same
sound method of explaining the detail by its whole, the superstructure
by its foundation. In the treatment of kinship and matriliny, too little
concession is perhaps made to the important theories of Sir James Frazer
and Mr. Hartland, whose views, unquestionably correct, that ignorance
of paternity is universal and primitive among savages, Prof. Westermarck
cannot accept. Nor can he see perhaps sufficiently clearly the enormous
influence of this savage ignorance on primitive ideas of kinship. As Sir
I James Frazer says:

"Fatherhood to a Central Australian savage is a very different thing
from fatherhood to a civilized European. To the European father it means
that he has begotten a child on a woman; to the Central Australian father
it means that the child is the offspring of a woman with whom he has a
I right to cohabit. . . . To the European mind the tie between a father and
his child is physical; to the Central Australian it is social." ^ The distinc-

^Totemism and Exogamy, 1910, Vol. I, p. 236.

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SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

tion between a physiological and a social conception of kinship is indeed
essential. But, on the whole, Prof. Westermarck's views do not diverge
so much from those of Frazer, who, on the other hand, occupies a
moderate position among the supporters of the opposite theories.

Prof. Westermarck's explanation of exogamy, and of the prohibition
of incest — which I think will come to be considered as a model of socio-
logical construction, and which remarkably enough seems to find favour
with no one — can only be mentioned here. The excellent chapters on mar-
riage rites (chaps, xxiv-xxvi) ; the analysis of what could be called the
numeric varieties of marriage, monogamy and polygamy (chaps, xxvii-
xxviii) ; polyandry (xxix-xxx) ; duration of marriage (xxxii-xxxiii) ,
stand somewhat apart from the main argument of the book. Each division
is a monograph, a Corpus Inscriptionum MatrimonialtMm, a treatise in
itself.

The book is and will remain an inexhaustible fount of information, a
lasting contribution towards the clearing up of some of the most obscure
aspects of human evolution, and it marks an epoch in the development
of sociological method and reasoning.

IIII

ROBERT BRIFFAULT AND ERNEST CRAWLEY

Primitive marriage and kinship

Students of primitive mankind still indulge too frequently in bitter and
futile controversy; their reputation on this score is deservedly bad, and
anthropology, I fear, could well be described as the study of rude man by
rude people. Among the various hotly discussed subjects, perhaps the
most contentious is primitive sexual hfe and mating — the much disputed
"marriage of the missing link."

The appearance of two remarkable books on this subject, each standing
for one side of the vast controversy, is a notable event, and affords a
good opportunity for a statement of the problem as it now stands. One
of the books, Crawley's Mystic Rose, well brought up-to-date by Mr.
Besterman, is exactly twenty-five years old, yet it is not only entirely
fresh, but also in many respects it is bound to lead modern research for
yet another quarter of a century. The other book, Mr. Briffault's The
Mothers — in size and erudition an imposing achievement — leads us back
to the early seventies, to the speculations of Bachofen, Morgan, and

This article was a review of The Mothers: A Study of the Origins of Senti-
ments and Institutions by Robert Briffault, and The Mystic Rose: A Study of
Primitive Marriage and of Primitive Thought in its Bearing on Marriage by
Ernest Crawley; it appeared in Nature, January 28, 1928 {Vol. 121, No. 3039),
pp. 126—30, and is reprinted by permission.

PIONEERS IN THE STUDY OF SEX AND MARRIAGE

123

McLennan. It is, in fact, an attempt to revive their now antiquated
point of view that mother-right combined with sexual communism was
the original form of organisation. Between them these two books repre-
sent a long span of anthropological history; the new contribution its past
and the old one its future; while both mirror the present deadlock.

The anthropology of to-day can be divided into two camps on the
issue of primitive marriage and kinship: those who believe in original
monogamy and those who uphold the hypothesis of promiscuity. Was
primitive man sexually promiscuous, or was he monogamous? Was he a
thoroughgoing communist in wives and chattels, or a possessive individu-
alist? Was he complaisant or jealous? Was it patriarchy or mother-right
which shaped early institutions? Range Andrew Lang, Westermarck,
Crawley, Lowie, and Kroeber on one side, and Frazer, Hartland, Rivers,
Miiller-Lyer on the other, and the latter will vote for communism, group-
marriage, mother-right, and complaisance in the "missing link" or primi-
tive man, and the former for his monogamy, jealousy, and private pos-
session.

(1) In my opinion, the problem has been distorted by this black-and-
white, yea-or-nay treatment, and I regard it as the main defect in Mr.
Briffault's book that he fights on the side of communism, as well as of
mother-right, without compromise or reservation. The main thesis of the
book is that mother-right was the source of social organisation, that male
influence was entirely irrelevant in the dawn of culture, and that kin-
ship, political organisation, the beginnings of law, economic life, magic,
and religion were created and completely dominated by woman. To estab-
lish this, Mr. Briffault maintains that the maternal instinct is the sole
origin of all tender emotions, hence also of all human organisation. Sexual
love, on the other hand, leads to cruelty rather than to affection, and has
been socially and culturally barren. "The mothers are the basis and the
bond of the primitive social group. . . . The male takes no share in the
rearing of the young. . . . Fatherhood does not exist."

It is difficult, perhaps, to reconcile this conception of the mother as a
source of all affection and all social cohesion with the use which Mr.
Briffault makes of her when he tries to explain the origins of exogamy by
brutal expulsion of the males. In this context he describes her as: "a fierce
enough wild animal . . . uncontrolled and violent ... an object of hor-
ror ... to the young male, terror-stricken by the anger of a despotic
mother." The book is full of such provoking and fantastic exaggerations.

Mr. Briffault leaves no place whatever for the male in early culture.
Such extremely important institutions as age grades, secret societies, initia-
tion ceremonies and male political organisations are completely ignored
in this work. Again, the role of the mother's brother in mother-right is
scarcely accounted for; yet a male who intrudes into the very heart of
maternal institutions is a formidable difficulty for the champion of an

124

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

exclusively female culture. Avunculate, one of the most important
features of matrilineal societies, is scarcely touched upon by the author —
the word is not in the index.

The author then proceeds to^ prove that group marriage and sex com-
munism exist, and in the course of this discussion commits himself to
such extraordinary statements as that "among animals the maternal and
derivative, parental, filial, and fraternal instincts operate in accordance
with the 'classificatory,' and not with the 'descriptive' system of relation-
ship. It would appear that it is the former that is in a biological sense
'natural,' and the latter which is 'artificial.' " The classificatory system in
fact seems so "natural" to Mr. Briffault that he does not discuss it at all,
nor does he, in the whole three volumes, give any analysis of primitive
kinship, a gap really astounding in a work dealing with mother-right —
which is after all but one aspect of primitive kinship.

In the following chapters Mr. Briffault informs us that "girls and
women who are not married are under no restrictions as to their sexual
relations. . . . To that rule there does not exist any known exception."
Since we know that, according to Mr. Briffault, married women also in-
dulge in "group-marriage" and other forms of "licence," continence and
individual sexual relations seem to have been completely absent from
primitive life. As a matter of fact, the statement quoted is a most mis-
leading generalisation, inaccurate in wording, unsupported by evidence,
and based upon a fundamental misconception of human marriage and
sexuality. After an account, given from his point of view, of primitive
sex communism, group-marriage, sexual selection, and the various man-
ners of concluding marriage, Mr. Briffault proceeds to attribute to woman
the discovery of totemism, witchcraft and religion.

It would be easy to indict The Mothers for its dogmatic and one-sided
affirmations; for the straining of evidence, sometimes to the breaking
point; for unsatisfactory definitions — or absence thereof — in such capital
concepts as marriage, communism, kinship, avunculate, and mother-right.
Much space is wasted in futile controversy; above all in virulent attacks
upon Prof. Westermarck, generally by first distorting his views and then
destroying them. On the other hand, the contributions of Crawley and
Sidney Hartland, and the new and important work of Schmidt and Kop-
pers, are completely ignored. Briffault's three enormous volumes might
almost be called an "encyclopaedia of matrimonial errors." The work,
however, will be useful to a student, even though he reject most of its
conclusions; for it gives a clear, well-written, and certainly unreserved
statement of one side of the main problem of anthropology. To the
amateur it will prove attractive reading as an introduction; and will be
the more useful for its dramatic, strong, and effective narrative, which
rivets the attention more forcefully and leaves a sharper imprint upon

PIONEERS IN THE STUDY OF SEX AND MARRIAGE

125

the memory than a well-balanced, hence less colourful, account might do.

As a contribution to science the work has one or two real merits. It is
the most exhaustive though one-sided account of the influence of ma-
ternity upon the cultural role of woman. In the discussion of that subject
the author clearly sees and, to the best of his ability, discusses the relation
of innate endowment to social institutions in the shaping of human na-
ture; and, in my opinion, anthropology will in the future have to be
more concerned with the place of culture within biological development
and with the relation of instinct to institution, than with questions of
**origin," "evolution," "history," or "diffusion."

(2) The biological foundations of culture, which Mr. Briffault at-
tempts to consider in his new work, have already been fully discussed in
The Mystic Rose, where the psychology of human relations is explained
by what Crawley has termed physiological thought. The book sets out to
discuss the many strange customs and institutions which centre round
sexual life — the couvade, sexual taboos, various avoidances, and cere-
monies of marriage.

Crawley resolutely rejects all explanations in terms of survival from
such original conditions of mankind as "sexual communism," "mother-
right," and the total eclipse of the male sex. He regards these as imaginary
fantasies constructed against all evidence. He also maintains that the "in-
discriminate and careless use of the terms survival and rudiments" is one
of the main sources of anthropological error. On both points anthropology
will, in my opinion, have to follow his lead and become inspired by his
methods.

The explanation of savage custom and institutions must be given in
terms of primitive thought. When Crawley, in his brilliant analysis of
savage mentality, declares that "primitive thinking does not distinguish
between the natural and the supernatural, between subjective and ob-
jective reality," his wording is not quite satisfactory; yet even in this
slight misrepresentation of what he terms "primitive logic," Crawley, in
forestalling the theories of Levy-Bruhl, Danzel, [Alfred] Vierkandt, and
their followers, must be regarded as the pioneer of modern developments
of the problem of primitive psychology. He himself, however, has es-
chewed the extravagances of some of his successors. He does not commit
the fallacy of assuming that the savage has a mind different from that of
civilised man. ". . . Human nature remains fundamentally primitive.
. . . Primitive ideas . . . spring eternally from permanent functional
causes. . . . Ordinary universal human ideas, chiefly connected with
functional needs, produce the same results in all ages; and many so-called
survivals, which have on the face of them too much vitality to be mere
fossil remains, at once receive a scientific explanation which is more than
antiquarian." These statements strike the keynote of the soundest develop-

126

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

ments in modern anthropology. In laying down this point of view, and
in carrying it through consistently, Crawley has laid the foundations for
the scientific treatment of primitive sexual and social relations.

The main form which "physiological thought" takes in the primitive
mind, that is, in the human mind as we find it universally, is a strong
apprehension of danger arising from contact with other human beings,
especially when there is an element of the abnormal or unusual in the
relation. Strangers, people in critical condition — such as sickness, death,
or functional crisis — and, above all, people of the other sex, are sur-
rounded with an aura of supernatural fear. In savage culture such
dangers are met by two devices: the taboo, and the ritual breaking of it.

Taboo is considered by Crawley as an inevitable by-product of human
psychology; and, in a masterly survey of primitive social relations, we
are shown how the various imperatives and prohibitions arise naturally
out of savage life and savage outlook. Crawley constructs no hypotheses,
invokes no deus ex machina — he explains quaint features and unrelated
details in terms of intelligible and fundamental fact; he introduces order,
he links up apparently disconnected phenomena and transforms the
strange and unknown welter of "primitive superstition" into a familiar
and comprehensible scheme of essentially human behaviour.

The taboo between men and women in its various aspects is treated
against the background of mixed attraction and fear, of distrust under-
mining love — an attitude which is shown to dominate the relations be-
tween the two sexes. In this Crawley has anticipated the various theories
of primitive society based on the principle of sex antagonism, theories set
forth by [Walter] Heape and several other writers long after the first
edition of The Mystic Rose was published. In Crawley's work we also be-
come acquainted for the first time with that emotional complexity under-
lying all social relations, especially as between men and women, which has
been systematically worked out by A. F. Shand in his theory of sentiment
(The Foundations of Character). Under the title of "ambivalence" we
have had similar phenomena dished up in a somewhat distorted shape in
psycho-analytic literature. Crawley, in fact, can be described as the sane
and sober forerunner of psycho-analysis, which, when The Mystic Rose
was written, was unknown beyond a narrow circle of Viennese practi-
tioners. It must also be remembered that psycho-analysis did not turn its
attention to problems of primitive culture until a decade after the present
book was first pubhshed. The Mystic Rose, in the due emphasis which it
places on sex, in its clear and courageous, but never fantastic or over-
heated, interest in that impulse, can be placed side by side with Havelock
Ellis's Psychology of Sex as a pioneer in modern, scientific treatment of
human love and mating.

In his theory of ritual and sacrament as mechanisms of breaking the
taboo; in his theory of union; in his description of change and exchange;

PIONEERS IN THE STUDY OF SEX AND MARRIAGE

127

and in his analysis of the ritual in vital crises, Crawley has been a fore-
runner of several now developed branches of anthropology. To him can
be attributed the first statement of the theory of rites de passage, after-
wards so successfully developed by Schurtz, [Arnold] van Gennep, and
Hutton Webster. He was the first to regard the sacrilisation of crises of
life as the main function of religion — a theory to which he returned in
his later work {The Tree of Life). His doctrines of change and exchange,
of reciprocity and the principle of contact, are akin to the views of the
French sociological school, especially of Durkheim, [H.] Hubert, [M.]
Mauss, and [Georges] Davy.

Finally, in the last part, a penetrating and original analysis is given of
primitive kinship and relationship: that pivot problem and eternal puzzle
of the anthropologist. In my opinion it ranks side by side with the first
few chapters of Westermarck's History of Human Marriage as the best
treatment of kinship yet given. Had such writers as the lace Dr. Rivers,
Mr. Briffault, and other latter-day Morganians read, digested, and as-
similated the last three chapters of The Mystic Rose, we would have had
better field-work and fewer speculations about "anomalous marriages,*'
"group-motherhood," and "savage communism." Even on this last point,
Crawley, though not especially interested in economics, had a sound and
a realistic view. All anthropological evidence, he maintains, tends "to
disprove the common idea that early society had a communistic and
socialistic character. The 'rights' of the individual in property, marriage,
and everything else were never more clearly defined than by primitive
man." Recently we have been told by a great authority that the Mela-
nesians are "communistic." That such a view is based on superficial ob-
servation, and that Crawley is right here, as almost everywhere else, I
have attempted to prove (Crime and Custom in Savage Society).

The foundations of Crawley's work are so sound, so firmly established
in the bedrock of human nature rightly understood, and of human culture
correctly interpreted, that anthropologists will have to build on them for
generations to come. To show this, one aspect of his views might be
further developed in this place. Crawley has taken the primitive concep-
tion of the danger in sexual selection as the fundamental and irreducible
datum. He speaks of "that difference of sex and of sexual characters
which renders mutual sympathy and understanding more or less difficult";
and he adds: "woman is one of the last things to be understood by man."
Again: ". . . woman is different from man, and this difference has had
the same religious results as have attended other things which man does
not understand." He also speaks of "the instinctive separation of the
sexes hardening into tradition and finally made the subject of taboo."

Now I think that here it is possible for modern anthropology to go a
step further and to interpret the psychological attitude of primitive man
by its cultural function. I maintain that sex is regarded as dangerous by

128

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

the savage, that it is tabooed and rituaHsed, surrounded by moral and
legal norms — not because of any superstition of primitive man, or emo-
tional view of or instinct about strangeness, but for the simple reason
that sex really is dangerous.

The sexual impulse has to be experimental if it is to be selective; and
it has to be selective if it is to lead to the mating of best with best. This
is the eugenic principle which I believe governs human marriage as well
as animal mating. Hence sexual jealousy and competition is to be found
in human societies, and it harbours serious disruptive forces for any social
group living in close contact. In animal societies, rut not only allows the
law of battle and sexual selection to operate in especially favourable
circumstances, but it also circumscribes the duration of the disruptive
impulse and thus eliminates most of its dangers. In man rut is absent,
and sex holds him in permanent readiness and tension. Cultural regula-
tions, the various taboos and barriers step in and fetter him, where natural
endowment has left him freer than the beast. They safeguard the family
by the prohibition of incest, the clan by rules of exogamy, and the bonds
of marriage by the ban on adultery and what might be called the principle
of legitimacy. This argument cannot be fully developed or substantiated
by evidence in this place; nor is it necessary for me to do so, since my
views are developed at some length elsewhere {Sex and Repression in
Savage Society) .

In human culture, however, no physical force is sufficient without
moral support; no social regulations, however strongly backed by execu-
tive power, can be effective without mental assent. The social and cul-
tural rules which separate primitive man and woman in daily existence, at
initiation, during the crises of life, in economic occupations, and within
certain social groups, cannot stand without the support of some system of
thought and belief. Here, indeed, we find all those ideas which express the
danger of sex — the ideas of evil and sin — at the very core of love and
passion; the conviction that highest happiness in erotic union can only
be obtained at the cost of infinite pains and precautions; belief, in short,
that sex is religiously sacred, sacer, that is, at the same time holy and
polluting. The universally human conception of sex must be explained, I
think, by its function within culture rather than by mere reference to
primitive psychology and the early conditions of life. The sexual taboo,
then, and the ideas upon which it rests, appear to us indispensable corol-
laries of culture and of the influence of this on the increased plasticity of
instinct which, since in man it has become more free, more experimental,
and therefore more dangerous than in the animal, needs elaborate regula-
tion. The barriers imposed upon sex by culture — that is, the taboos and
the correlated primitive conception of sex dangers — appear to us as an
inevitable by-product of the change wrought in human endowment by
the passage from the state of Nature to that of culture.

PIONEERS IN THE STUDY OF SEX AND MARRIAGE

129

I hasten to add that this functional view is implied at many points in
Crawley's argument, though it is nowhere clearly formulated by him.
It is really implicit in his own concept of the primitive Weltanscbammg,
in which beliefs and ideas do not exist as useless "idle survivals," not as
"speculations of rude philosophers," or even as "mistaken associations of
ideas." Crawley treats these simple and often quaint "savage superstitions"
as what they really are: life forces, indispensable moral values which shape
the destinies of mankind with a determinism as binding though not as
rigid as that which obtains in the physical world. Thus Crawley has given
us in The Mystic Rose, what is, perhaps, the first truly scientific work
of comparative anthropology, and he must be regarded as one of the
founders of what is now known as the functional method of modern
anthropology.

nil

HAVELOCK ELLIS

Havelock Ellis has been a personal experience to most thinking men and
women of our age — a personal experience which lasts. His scientific work,
his artistic vision and the dramatic role which he was made to play as
the price of his prophetic influence — and which he played with a con-
summate dignity and restraint — all these surround him with that mythical
halo which but rarely comes to a man during his lifetime. Those of us
who have the privilege of personal acquaintance and friendship know well
with what charm and nobility he acquits himself of this most dangerous
and difficult burden: world-wide fame achieved early in life.

But personal acquaintance is merely a confirmation of the many
things which he gives in his published, spoken and acted manifestation;
for as all great men, Havelock Ellis lives and reveals himself in his words
and deeds. All true and real things in life are simple at heart, yet with
an infinite variety of iridescent surface. The thoughts and sentiments of
Havelock Ellis are direct in intent, manifold in the grasp of essential facts,
and sincere in expression. His philosophic attitude is non-partisan and
non-sectarian: he always remains the synthetic metaphysician of life.

The simplest and the most fundamental truths are invariably the most
diflScult to see and to express. Havelock Ellis tells us that life in its fullest
sense is worth Hving; that sex should be understood, indeed studied sci-
entifically; that on the basis of such knowledge it must be morally vindi-
cated; that a great many of the strict taboos and puritanic values of the
past generation will have to change.

Sex is a great and wonderful power for evil and for good, and we must

This article appeared in Birth Control Review {now Planned Parenthood
News), March 1931, p. 77, and is reprinted by permission.

130

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

deal with it as we deal with other forces of nature: understand, respect
and control it in the Hght of truth and not in the shadows of prejudice
and preconception.

All this Havelock Ellis has given us. He has not proclaimed it as his
own great "discovery," but has shown us the facts; illuminated them with
his insight; Ht them with the fire of his inspiration and enthusiasm.
Havelock Ellis has never made sex the only explanation of all mental
phenomena, nor has he advocated free indulgence as the remedy of all
spiritual and social evils; he never fell into the error of facile pansexualism;
nor is his scientific work a system of one-sided doctrines. He was indeed
the first scientifically to unveil most of the real mysteries of the sexual
instinct. His analysis of the two-fold aspect of this impulse, tumescence
and its release; his theory of modesty as a biological asset; his radical
distinction between the socially relevant and the essentially personal ele-
ments in sex — all this and much more will remain as a classical and a
lasting contribution to science.

His pioneering genius consists of a rare combination: common-sense
and prophetic intuition. It has made Havelock Ellis anticipate most of
the discoveries which are usually ascribed to psychoanalysis, and for which,
indeed, he himself gives all credit to Freud, where this credit is really
due. The whole path of theoretical development which we can follow in
the seven volumes of the Psychology of Sex is strewn with innumerable
findings bearing on practically all sound modern doctrines in the sciences
of the human mind, human society and the human body. Like life itself,
and the manifestations of the wide world, Havelock Ellis's work harbors
inconsistencies, and it will provoke, now and then, contradictions from
even his most enthusiastic followers. One might almost say that to learn
from him, by reading his books, is like being in touch with experimental
reality, so little parfipris, parochialism and egocentric vanity is there in
his work. So that even on those points where we disagree with Havelock
Ellis, we still remain indebted to him for stimulus and inspiration.

There is one aspect of Havelock Ellis's work, however, which he him-
self has tried to make non-dogmatic and tentative, but which will, I
think, remain of permanent value. This is the ethical aspect, and here
again it is his supreme tolerance and placidity of mind, combined with
his warmth of heart and earnestness of purpose, which makes him go right
every time. The dancing "Philosopher of Life" is never frivolous, never
cynical and never bitter. He has — in spite of some false appearances and
of some aphorisms which have been made about him — nothing of the
satyr; nothing of the demon; too little, perhaps, of Dionysos. Some of us,
made of a baser metal, may perhaps miss this in Havelock Ellis, the phi-
losopher; even more in Havelock Ellis, the artist; but no serious and
honest man will miss it in Havelock Ellis the friend and the counsellor.
Take only one issue, but the main issue of sex morality and of all the

PIONEERS IN THE STUDY OF SEX AND MARRIAGE

131

modern problems connected with it — I mean, of course, birth control.
Havelock Ellis from the outset was not only a wise advisor and a con-
sistent supporter of birth control; he was also one of the first to recog-
nize the immense theoretical importance and practical position of birth
control in all the vital questions of social ethics. He is unquestionably the
most important representative of Neo-Malthusianism in England and in
Europe, and serious supporters of birth control in America have chosen
him as the Old World Patron Saint of the movement. In his great work
on sex, Havelock Ellis has laid the foundation of a new ethical attitude as
well as of a new science, and he has given not only an encyclopaedia of
facts and a system of ideas, but also a charter of a new freedom.

To me in my earlier youthful enthusiasms Havelock Ellis was first a
myth, fraught with artistic and moral significance; later he was an intel-
lectual reality in shaping the plastic phase of my mental development;
finally he became a great personal experience when I met him and saw
realized in life the anticipation of a great personality. In this, I am glad
to say, I feel but one of the legion of his friends and admirers, for all of us
like to share that which we regard as good and great. Havelock ElUs
provokes just that unselfish admiration and devotion, and in this, perhaps,
lies his greatest achievement.

illlllll 6 llllllllilllllilll

KINSHIP

Kinship in human culture

Birth, suckling and the tender cares bestowed by the parents on their
offspring estabHsh bonds of union between the members of a family,
both in human and in animal societies. The devotion of the suckling
mother is not an exclusively human virtue; the watchful and protecting
father is to be found among many species of birds and mammals; and
the pathetic response of the young to their parents moves the heart of
the animal lover as well as of the philanthropist. With many animals,
kinship, the protective sentiment of the parents, and the child's response
to it, constitute part of the innate endowment indispensable for the sur-
vival of the species.

With man, however, we find physiological kinship deeply modified and
grown into what is perhaps the most important social institution of man-
kind. Kinship controls family life, law, social organization and economics,
and it deeply influences religion, morality and art. With us the parental
relation figures in the ten commandments; maternal love remains the
symbol and prototype of many moral virtues; the relations within the
Trinity, the obligations between man and his Maker, and those of Chris-
tian to Christian are conceived in terms of kinship — Son to Father; child
to One addressed as "our Father which art in heaven"; brother to brother.
In other societies, the cult of a Mother Goddess, or again ancestor-wor-
ship, or kinship with animals or spirits give the dominant tone to religion,
morality and art, and directly influence law, social organization and
economics. Every human culture is built upon its own system of kinship,
that is, upon a special type of personal bonds primarily derived from pro-
creation and family life. Without a deeper understanding of kinship it is

This article appeared in the 14th Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica,
1929, Vol. XIII, pp. 403-09; reprinted by permission of Encyclopedia Britannica,
Inc.

KINSHIP

133

impossible to grasp the organization, the modes of thought and the general
character of human civilization from its humblest origins to its highest
development.

The family as the source of kinship

At first sight kinship, the bonds of union between parents and children
and between more remote relatives, appears to be simple enough: the typi-
cal family, a group consisting of mother, father and their progeny, is
found in all communities, savage, barbarous and civilized; everywhere it
plays an important role and influences the whole extent of social organ-
ization and culture.

Indeed it seems hardly to differ at all from its modern, civilized counter-
part, as we know it from our own experience. Among native tribes mother,
father and children share the camp, the dwelling, the food and the life.
The intimacy of family existence, the daily round of meals, the domestic
occupations and outdoor work, the rest at night and the awakening to a
new day, run in both civilized and savage societies on strictly parallel
lines, allowing for the difference in levels of culture. The members of the
household are as a rule as closely bound together in a native tribe as they
are in a European society, attached to each other, sharing life and most of
its interests, exchanging counsel and help, company, cheer and economic
co-operation. The same bonds unite them as unite our family, the same
distances and barriers separate them from other households. In Australia,
as well as among most North American Indians, in Oceania and in Asia,
among the African tribes and in South America, the individual undivided
family stands out conspicuous, a definite social unit marked off from the
rest of society by a clear line of division.

It would be easy to illustrate this picture by a host of actual descrip-
tions. In no ethnographic area is the family absent as a domestic institu-
tion. Putting these facts together with our childhood's vision of the first
marriage — Adam and Eve in paradise — with the patriarchal traditions of
the Bible and of classical antiquity, with the early sociological theories
from Aristotle onwards, we might conclude with Sir Henry Maine that
it would be impossible to imagine any form of social organization at the
beginning of human culture, but that of the patriarchal family. And we
might be led to assume that our own type of family is to be found
wherever we go, and that kinship is built on the same pattern in every
part of the world.

The controversy on kinship

The layman is therefore not unjvistifiably taken aback, when on open-
ing a modern scientific book on primitive society, he finds himself con-
fronted by extreme dissension and acrimonious controversy about the very
subject on which he expected a simple statement of obvious fact. Broadly

134

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

speaking, anthropologists are divided on the questions: does the essential
unit consist of the family, or of a wider group, such as the clan, the
horde, the "undivided commune"; was marriage between single pairs
present from the outset or did it evolve from a preceding promiscuity or
group marriage; was human kinship originally individual or communistic?
One school stands by individual marriage and kinship, and the importance
of the family, the other affirms an original communism in sex, economics
and kinship — and the two schools are still disputing the issue.

This great anthropological rift, however, is not due merely to the
perversity and pugnacity of specialists, nor to any inherent vice of method
or insufficiency of material. It often happens in science that the seemingly
simplest and most fundamental problems are really the most difficult and
remain longest debated and unsettled. As the physicists cannot make up
their minds on matter, force or energy, as the chemists change their
views on the atom and the elements, as the mathematicians are least certain
about space, time and numbers, so the social anthropologists may be for-
given if they still debate, at times hotly, kinship — that conception in
which centre all their other problems and ideas.

Modes of counting descent

Kinship, indeed, apparently simple when regarded as ties of union aris-
ing within the family out of procreation and the rearing of the young,
becomes far more complex when we study it in its further ramifications
in tribal life. On one point of great importance a correction has to be
made in the traditional view that had undivided sway, before Bachofen,
McLennan and Morgan revolutionized social anthropology during the lat-
ter half of the 19th century. Kinship is by no means invariably patriar-
chal; it is not always based on the recognition of the father's primary im-
portance in establishing descent; nor is his right to exercise authority
or to hand over his position, wealth and privileges to his son universal.
In many societies the mother is the parent through whom kinship is
counted, her brother is the male head of the family and inheritance of
goods, succession of office and all rights, obligations and privileges are
passed from a man to his sister's children.

This legal system is called mother-right or more correctly matriliny;
and the relation between a man and his sister's son, avunculate. The cir-
cumstance that kinship can be traced through both father and mother
has been termed (by Lowie) "the bilateral principle of counting descent";
while the almost universal fact that in any given culture emphasis is
laid upon one side only has been defined as the unilateral mode of regard-
ing kinship. The bilateral aspect of kinship is never completely obliterated
and unilateral counting only means a more or less limited emphasis on one
side and never a complete elimination of the other.

KINSHIP

135

The hypertrophy of primitive bonds

Another feature which makes kinship in many a native culture very
different from our own is its extraordinary hypertrophy: it transcends the
limits of the family, of the local group, at times even of the widest
circle of acquaintances.

Perhaps the most baffling and disquieting symptom of these collective
aspects of kinship is the queer linguistic usage known as the "classifica-
tory" system of kinship nomenclature. In most savage tongues a man
applies such terms as father, mother, brother, sister and so on, not only
to the members of his family but, according to rules which vary with
the social organization, to classes of people who stand in a definite rela-
tion to his parents. In some communities, indeed, for example in Australia,
kinship terms go as far as actual social relations and even beyond — that
is, even distant strangers never met or seen are regarded as potentially
belonging to one class of kindred or another.

Thus language and linguistic usage seem apparently to break the bonds
of family, to obliterate parenthood by substituting a ''group of fathers"
for the individual one, a "group of mothers" for the real mother, and
so on. Nor is this usage a mere rule of politeness: the "classificatory"
terms are applied according to strict rules, to a number of people, whose
relationship is traceable by pedigree or by membership in a clan or
class. Behind the linguistic usage there is always a set of mutual obliga-
tions between an individual and all those whom he calls "fathers," "moth-
ers," "brothers," etc. The "fathers" or "brothers" act as a group on cer-
tain occasions and they are therefore a well-defined social class and not
merely a name.

Clan, moieties and classes of relatives

Thus the classificatory use of kinship terms is not alone in grouping
people into classes of kindred. The majority of native tribes are actually
divided not only into families, but into bigger groups, which yet possess
to a certain extent a kinship character. Thus in certain areas, the tribe
falls into two halves or moieties. Each of these has its name, its collective
sense of unity, usually a special myth defining its character and its rela-
tion to the other moiety. The division of certain Australian tribes into the
moieties of Eaglehawk and Crow and the bi-partition of the eastern North
American Indians are classical examples of this division. Usually this halv-
ing of the tribe is associated with strict prohibitions of marriage within
the same moiety, so that a man of the first must marry a woman of
the second and vice versa. In other tribes there are four clans or classes,
in others again eight, these sections regulating marriage and playing a
conspicuous part in ceremonial and economic life. Among the majority of

136

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

peoples, however, there is an odd number of clans which cannot be brought
under the dual or any other numeric principle.

What makes it difficult to understand these modes of grouping is pre-
cisely their kinship character. The members of a clan regard themselves
as kindred, trace their descent from a common ancestor, conceive of their
exogamous prohibitions as of a variety or extension of incest, and, under
certain conditions behave to each other like kinsmen.

Thus there exist tribes where an individual really seems to acknowledge
many ''fathers," many "mothers," ''sisters," "wives," and so on. And yet
in every such case, the man also possesses one real or own relative, a fa-
ther, a few own brothers and own sisters and certainly an individual
mother.

The hypotheses of group marriage and group kinship

As to the fathers, a plausible hypothesis suggests that their plurality
might be perhaps due to uncertainty of fatherhood under a system of
primitive group marriage. Was not marriage originally promiscuous, com-
munal, between two groups rather than between two individuals? Was not
therefore kinship, derived from such group-marriage, originally group-
kinship? Is not the classificatory use of kinship terms partly the expres-
sion of such group-family relations as they still persist, partly the sur-
vival of a more definitely communistic kinship of primeval times? And
we see how a plausible reasoning has led many an anthropologist — from
Morgan to Rivers, from McLennan to Frazer, from Bachofen to Sidney
Hartland — to the theory of a primitive group-marriage and group-
family, and to the assumption that primitive kinship was a class kinship,
between groups and not between individuals. On the other hand this posi-
tion has been vehemently disputed by the other school, who cannot recon-
cile it with the supreme importance of the family, with the apparently
primeval nature of marriage between single pairs and with the individu-
ality of Motherhood. By Darwin as well as by Westermarck, by Andrew
Lang and by Crawley almost every assumption of the group-kinship
school has been disputed, while recently Lowie and Malinowski have tried
to show by the analysis of actual facts that the family is after all the
foundation of all social order.

Individual and collective kinship

The problem has been undoubtedly vitiated by the uncompromising
championship of the clan versus the family, primitive monogamy versus
group-marriage, individual relations versus clanship. The question is not
whether kinship is individual or communal — it evidently is both — but
what is the relation between its two aspects? It is an undeniable fact that
the family is universal and sociologically more important than the clan
which, in the evolution of humanity, it preceded and outlasted. But the

KINSHIP

137

clan is in certain communities extremely vital and effective. What is the
relation between them? Individual legal prerogatives and self-interest are
always predominant, but corporate feeling, co-operation, joint ownership
and joint responsibility are important elements in primitive justice and
legal organisation. All these bonds and relations, individual as well as com-
munal, are founded on kinship and the sense of kinship. The real task
of the enlightened anthropologist is not to join either "school" in denying
or belittling one side of kinship or the other, but to establish the relation
between the two sides.

The variety of meanings in each classifi calory term

The traditional approach to the problem, since Morgan, has been through
language. The classificatory character of the terms made a great im-
pression upon anthropologists — but they failed to analyse it linguisti-
cally! Now in all human languages we find homonyms, that is, words with
a variety of meanings, and in primitive languages such words abound and
do not cause any confusion. Thus in technology we frequently find that
the same word is used to designate the natural objects from which the
material is taken, the material in its raw form, the various stages of manu-
facture, and finally the finished object. In Melanesia, for instance, the
same term waga describes a tree as it stands in the forest, its felled and
lopped trunk, the dug-out in its various stages, and the finished canoe.
Similarly such words as "magical power" {mana, wakan, orenda, etc.),
"prohibition" {tabu), and what not, cover a great variety of meanings.

The first thing to ask then about kinship terms is, whether they really
"confuse," "merge" or "lump" the various relatives designated by the
same term, or whether on the contrary each time they are used, they
receive a distinct meaning, that is, refer to one individual only? As a mat-
ter of fact, in actual use kinship terms have always a distinct and con-
crete meaning and there never is any doubt in the mind of the speaker
or hearers as to who is designated in each case. The emotional tone in
the first place usually indicates whether a word such as Mother, Father,
Son, Daughter, Brother, Sister, is used towards or about "own" relatives,
or merely "classificatory" ones. And emotional intonation is an important
part of phonetic equipment.

In the second place, there is always an additional apparatus of adjectives,
suffixes and other circumlocutions which make it possible to specify
whether the actual mother is meant or her sister, or yet another of those
whom the classificatory term "mother" embraces. Recently, in Spencer
and Gillen's new book {The Arunta, 1928) we are given a very rich
auxiliary terminology of this kind, which proves that even in that strong-
hold of classificatory kinship. Central Australia, there exist highly de-
veloped linguistic means for differentiating individuals within each class.

Finally we have the context of situation and narrative, the most power-

138

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

ful index of semantic discrimination of meaning in primitive languages.
Thus in reality each so-called classificatory term is a class label for a
number of distinct words, every one of which has its own specific in-
dividual meaning. These individual words are in actual use differentiated
from each other phonetically, by the index of emotional tone; lexicograph-
ically by the index of circumlocution; contextually by the index of situa-
tion. The individual meanings are moreover not built up in a haphazard
manner; they are related to each other; they start with a main or primary
reference; which then through successive extensions engenders a series
of derived meanings.

The initial situation of kinship

What is throughout humanity the initial situation of kinship in which
the primary meanings of the terms are formed; and above all is that ini-
tial situation individual or collective? Does the child form its kinship
meaning on one set of parents, one Mother and one Father, or is it
surrounded — at the time when its first sociological categories are being
shaped — by a group-family, by classes of Mothers and Fathers? This as
we know is the point at issue, and apparently the answer seems to frame
itself according as we approach facts from the side of maternity or pater-
nity.

A deeper sociological analysis shows however that the problems of
Maternity and that of Paternity are not so different.

Biological and sociological parentage

Biological factors, though important, are not, however, in human so-
cieties the omnipotent, exclusively determining element, which they ap-
parently are in animal ones. Legal rules, social institutions, moral and
religious doctrines and practices deeply modify the ideas, sentiments and
the behaviour of man. Kinship which in its final form is a product of the
institutions and doctrines of a society is always shaped by laws and norma-
tive ideas. Indeed there is no reason why the transformation should not
go so far that the sentimental and legal bond between a child and its
mother should not become collective instead of individual. Indeed a bril-
liant anthropologist (Rivers) has recently propounded the hypothesis of
a sociological "group motherhood" as a correlate to "group marriage" and
"group fatherhood" and this hypothesis has been made one of the founda-
tion stones in a new matriarchal theory of primitive culture (Briffault).

Thus both maternity and paternity are partly based on biological ar-
rangements of the human organism and innate mental tendencies, and
both are deeply modified by social institutions and norms. In both, the
facts must be examined carefully; neither a mere zoological induction,
nor plausibly brilliant hypotheses about the omnipotence of society can
yield a satisfactory answer.

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139

Sex and the uncertainty of fatherhood

It will be best in fact to discuss maternity and paternity together. The
two sides of parenthood are linked by sexual life. The laxity of savages
has been given a great and undue prominence in discussions on kinship.
Wherever sexual relations occur between two groups, as in the Pirrauru
custom of Central Australia and sporadically in Siberia and Melanesia; or
even merely allowed as between marriage classes and clans, some anthro-
pologists are inclined to speak of "a still existing group-marriage" for-
getting that marriage implies far more than the right of sexual inter-
course. Again, in various customs of religious and ceremonial nature
(temple prostitution, ]ms primae noctis, ritual defloration, bridal night
relaxations, sex hospitality and exchange of partners) survivals of a primi-
tive sex communism have been discerned. This, combined with the testi-
mony of classificatory terms, has led to the hypothesis of primitive promis-
cuity and group family.

In reality, however, sexual freedom is an entirely different matter from
the liberty of parenthood, and between the two there enter some inter-
esting institutions and legal rules.

The principle of legitimacy

In fact the tolerance of free intercourse wherever this exists is not ex-
tended to the liberty of conception. The rule in most savage tribes which
allow pre-nuptial relations is that unmarried boys and girls may enjoy
themselves as much as they like, provided that there be no issue. At times,
as among the Areoi, the untrammelled artistic fraternities of Polynesia,
heavy penalties are inflicted on the unmarried mother, and illegitimate
children are killed or aborted. At times the putative father is penalised
unless he marries the girl, or again important economic and social pressure
make it advantageous for him to marry her. Almost universally the child
born before wedlock has a different status from the legitimate offspring,
usually very much to his disadvantage. Very interesting are the cases
where, as among the Todas, one of the physiologically possible fathers of
a polyandrous household has to perform a special rite in order to assume
the legal position of fatherhood. A child deprived of such a legal father
is disgraced for hfe, even though born in wedlock.

And this brings us to the important point. Physiological paternity, the
begetting of a child, is not, as a rule, sufficient and may even be irrelevant
in determining social fatherhood. In fact native peoples have naturally
but an imperfect idea of the mechanism of procreation. Some (Central
Austrahans, certain Melanesians, a few African tribes) attribute the
child to the agency of spiritual beings; others again (Ba-Ila, Rossel Is-
landers, some Australian tribes) over-emphasize the man's share. But in
all cases, where the subject has been competently investigated, we find

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SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

that the mechanism of procreation is conceived in a manner in which
some biological knowledge is arbitrarily mixed up with animistic beliefs.
This doctrine stands in a definite relation to the kinship ideas and legal
principles of a community. Invariably also the bond of kinship, believed
to be established by the act of procreation, bodily or spiritual, is of an
individual nature and fatherhood has at times to be reaffirmed by a special
legal ceremony, also individual.

Natural and sociological maternity

Maternity is obviously as much involved in native doctrines of concep-
tion as is fatherhood. Indeed, the ban on pre-nuptial children hits the
mother harder than the father, and it penalises always an individual, not
a group. An individual woman suffers the disadvantages of an illegitimate
child, unless there is a man legally united to her who individually shares
her responsibility.

Wherever there is an attempt to cause or prevent conception by reli-
gious and magical rites, these refer always to an individual mother and
child. The mother becomes usually subject to tabus during gestation which
she keeps individually and of which her husband often takes a share. The
welfare of the child concerns its own mother and father even before it
is born. At birth again various social, magical and moral rules separate the
mother from her husband and isolate her with her child. The few female
relatives who often assist her are her nearest individual kinswomen. There
is no transformation of an individual birth into a group birth — by legal
fiction or ritual — but on the contrary there is a social imposition of in-
dividual burdens, responsibilities and sentiments upon the real mother.
The father, though very much in the shadow, participates through cus-
toms of the cotivade type, vigils and tabus in his wife's confinement, and
this he also does individually.

No group parenthood

The ideas and institutions which control conception, pregnancy and
birth, show that these cannot be regarded by the anthropologist as mere
physiological facts, but as facts deeply modified by culture and social
organization. Conception is not left to the chance of free intercourse,
even where this is allowed, but its necessary condition is marriage. Parent-
hood, to be normal, must be made legitimate, that is, based on a socially
approved, but individual marriage contract. Society decrees that the ini-
tial setting of kinship be the individual family based on individual mar-
riage. And this social decree backs up the natural tenderness and affection
which seem to be innate in the human, as well as in the animal, parent.
The child again responds with a unique, life-long attachment to the
one woman and one man who constitute its first social horizon — that is
to its mother and father.

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141

The extensions of kmsbip

The relation of parents and children is individual, and so is that be-
tween brothers and sisters, who are to each other the natural playmates
and helpmates of childhood, and remain the legal partners and moral al-
lies in later life.

The household is thus the workshop where kinship ties are forged, and
the constitution of the individual family supplies the pattern upon which
they are built. We return thus to the simple view so long prevalent in
tradition and pre-scientific thought, but now we have established it by
a survey and analysis of facts, made it precise — and at the same time
qualified it considerably. For the individual household provides only the
initial situation of kinship; and the individual parents, brothers and sis-
ters supply only the primary meaning of kinship terms. This fact is of
the greatest importance, but to appreciate it fully it is necessary to fol-
low the further development of kinship bonds.

As the child grows beyond the earliest stages of infancy, it is brought
into contact with other households — those of the grandparents and those
- of the brothers and sisters of either parent. Perhaps the most important
among these persons is the mother's sister.

The substitute mother

The mother is the physiologically and morally indispensable parent in all
societies. Yet there is always the danger of her failing, temporarily or
permanently. The substitution of one person for another — in case of death,
illness or incapacity — is one of the fundamental elements of primitive
organization, and this substitution always takes place on the basis of
kinship. In a matrilineal society, the natural substitute for a mother is
her sister, usually the one nearest in age. In matrilocal communities, she
is on the spot, in patrilocal ones she has to be summoned if it is neces-
sary; even when not needed she will come on long visits. Thus the child,
as a rule, becomes familiar early in life with its mother's sister. She again
— having perhaps performed important duties during pregnancy and at
childbirth — is especially devoted to her potential ward. She often assists
the mother, in case of illness replaces her, occasionally may take the child
to her own home for a time. She and the mother both know that, under
circumstances, she may have to act as a mother to the child. Later on in
life the child comes also to realize this and to regard her as substitute or
secondary mother.

The substitute mother is, in certain respects, equivalent to the real
one: the child sees her in the intimacy of the household, side by side with
the real mother, receives the same services from her, realizes that at times
she replaces the real parent, acting thus as a secondary or substitute
mother. The child equally well realizes, however, that this is a very dif-

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SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

ferent "Mother" from the real one. A new relationship is thus built up
for which the first one is certainly the pattern, but the process is never
a simple repetition.

Linguistically, the extension of the same term Mother to the mother's
sister is obviously no more a complete assimilation than is its sociological
equivalent. The child forms a new meaning for the old word — in fact,
it acquires a new word with the same form, but a different referent and
usually a different phonetic character in its emotional tone. When he calls
his mother's sister "Mother," he neither fuses the two ideas nor confuses
the two people. He merely emphasizes the similarity while he ignores the
differences. This one-sided emphasis corresponds to the fact that similarity
is here the basis of legal obligation. The mother's sister is beholden to
the child in virtue of her equivalence to the mother. It is this which has
to be expressed and the child is taught to call her "Mother" since in do-
ing so it puts her under an obligation. The difference is obvious, irrelevant
— in a way to be obliterated or glossed over. The verbal magic, which is
the first form by which legal obligations are established, has to create a
fictitious identity between Mother's Sister and Mother.

What has been said about the mother's sister applies also to the father's
brother who, under father-right, is often regarded as a substitute father.
His wife would then act as a substitute mother, especially in case of adop-
tion. Under mother-right again, the mother's sister's husband would be the
substitute father.

The special relations of mother-right and father-right

Among the people closely related to the parents there are, however, some
to whom no extension of an already existing kinship attitude is possible.
The grandparents obviously belong here, and also the father's sister and
the mother's brother. Under mother-right and exogamy, the father's sis-
ter is never of the mother's kin and cannot be assimilated to the mother
while, though of the father's kin, she is not of his sex and, therefore, can-
not be assimilated to him. Under unilateral father-right, she again is the
chief kinswoman of the child. The mother's brother occupies the same
singular position both under mother-right and father-right. New attitudes
have to be built towards these relatives and, as a rule, we find also special
terms for them.

The children of the mother's sister and of the father's brother, or
"parallel cousins" as they are called in Anthropology, are usually regarded
by a savage child as his "secondary" brothers and sisters and addressed
by these terms. To them the primary family attitude is also partially ex-
tended, as it is to their parents.

The children of the mother's brother and father's sister — the "cross-
cousins" as they are technically called — usually require the creation of
a new type of bond. The terminologies of the cross-cousins often present

KINSHIP

143

strange verbal assimilations. Thus, in matrilineal societies, the paternal
cross-cousin is often called ''Father"; and under father-right mother's
brother's daughter is labelled ''Mother." If we consider, however, that
under mother-right, the paternal cross-cousin (father's sister's son) is
not Ego's real kinsman — that he is related to Ego only as the father's
nearest kinsman — then the verbal identification is less strange. The ap-
pellation then really means: "that man who is to me only in so far related
as he is my father's nearest in blood." And a similar psychological attitude
underlies the strange use of Mother to a cross-cousin and other anomalous
terms of this type.

The elimination of sex from workaday life

The unilateral principle which declares that kinship is counted through
mother or father only means, in fact, looked at concretely as it enters
the life of an individual, that the family bonds are extended on one side
only. An important aspect of this one-sided extension is the development
of rules of exogamy out of rules of incest. These rules eliminate sex out
of the household and the clan respectively. Incomprehensible in their
biological function, since biologists agree that occasional inbreeding is in-
nocuous, they can be accounted for by the incompatibility of sexual in-
terest with practical co-operation in everyday life. The emotional tension
which accompanies erotic play, the jealousies and dissensions which it
arouses as well as its obsessive and distractive influence, make it difficult
to mingle sex with serious pursuits. Hence war and hunting, agriculture
and trading enterprises, religious and public ceremonial, are often hedged
round with sexual tabus.

Domestic life and all those relations which start in the family, that is
parent and child, brother and sister, are permanently protected from the
upsetting influence of sex by the tabu of incest. Later on, when the sav-
age child, sexually ripe at an early age, enters the wider group of his
village community and tribe, an important division is established in all
his associations by the unilateral principle. Some people, male and female,
become his natural associates in work, legal interests and spiritual concerns.
These are his wider kindred, his clansmen and clanswomen, to whom he
extends the modified and diluted family attitude, comprising among others,
the rules of incest which here become the much wider and weaker tabus
of exogamy. The other group consists of women with whom he may amuse
himself and pursue his amorous inclinations, and of men with whom he
enters into relations of more or less friendly rivalry or reciprocity.

The unilateral principle is thus instrumental in securing for the clan
the same condition of sexually undisturbed co-operation as is secured for
the family by the prohibition of incest.

Unilateral descent is also intimately bound up with the nature of filia-
tion, that is, with the handing over of status, power, office and possessions,

144

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

from one generation to the other. Order and simplicity in the rules of filia-
tion are of the greatest importance for social cohesion. Indeed, we find
that most political quarrels and tribal dissensions are due, apart from sex,
to questions of inheritance and succession — from lowest savagery right up
to modern civiHzation. Rivalries during lifetime, fights and rifts after
the death of a man, especially if he be powerful, are of universal occur-
rence. For, as we know, mother-right and father-right are never absolute
and the rules are always elastic and sometimes ambiguous. The generaliza-
tion may, therefore, be laid down that the simpler and stricter the laws
of filiation, the more stringently enforced either mother-right or father-
right at the expense of the other, the greater will be the order and co-
hesion in a community, the smoother will be the transmission of author-
ity, tradition and wealth from one generation to the other.

The further extensions of kinship

So far mainly the principles of extension have been analysed — its driv-
ing forces, so to speak: such as the need of substitute parents; the value
of eliminating sex from household and clan; the importance of estab-
lishing order in filiation. The process itself consists, as in the case of
mother substitution, in a series of successive extensions, each of which
brings about a partial loosening and modification of the old ties, and the
formation of new ones upon the old model.

In the earlier stages, the infant is mainly passive — as when it forms the
first bonds by accepting the parental cares; as when it is weaned from the
mother; taught to name its parent; to accept a substitute mother and
father and to extend to them the parental appellations. Later on when the
baby assumes the status of a child, often by donning the first dress, when
he begins to follow the parents and takes some part in their pursuits,
his interest in new associations and in the formation of new bonds be-
comes more active too.

Then there comes, in some tribes at least, again a stage of abrupt, pas-
sively received training. The rites of tribal initiation, as a rule, entail a
dramatic break with the old life and the creation of new bonds. The
novice is made to forget his associations with the family, especially with
its female members, above all with the mother. In the course of the moral
and mythological training which he receives, he is taught in a systematic
way what kinship means, he is instructed in the principles of unilateral
descent, the rules of exogamy, the duties and responsibilities towards his
kindred and relatives. In other tribes, where there are no initiation rites,
the same moral and legal education is given gradually, spread over a longer
period — but it always has to be received, and it is always given with
reference to kinship.

The boy and girl now enter the active life of the tribe. Often the in-

KINSHIP

145

dividual has to change his residence, the girl on marrying into another
village, the boy on assuming his full unilateral kinship status. In matriar-
chal and patrilocal communities, for instance, he leaves his father's place
and joins his mother's brother. With this a new recrystallization of kinship
bonds takes place — always, however, on the same principle: with the old
pattern carried over, but adjusted to the individual's new status and to
his new conditions of life.

Marriage opens a new phase and constitutes another transition. Here
a new set of relatives is acquired, besides the individual mate, and the
terminology is enriched by another set of expressions, as a rule some taken
over from the old vocabulary of kinship, and some new ones added. In-
cidentally a new household is founded, with which the whole kinship
story starts afresh.

Later on, with old age, with the marriage of children and the arrival
of grandchildren, the kinship horizon changes once more, as a rule by
the growth and multiplication of the younger generation, lineal and col-
lateral, and by their gradual taking of duties, responsibilities and privileges
out of Ego's hands.

The nature of the extensions

Thus each successive transformation of kinship bonds is, as a rule, as-
sociated with a biological stage in human life; each corresponds to a dif-
ferent type of social setting; each is conditioned by different functions
performed by the group. Kinship invariably begins in the family — mother,
father and child, the latter depending for nourishment, comfort and
safety upon its parents. From the individual household and the mainly
biological functions of the family, the child passes into the social horizon
of a few associated households, which by the first extension of kinship,
furnish him with his "substitute" parents, brothers and sisters, and by
the formation of new relationships, supply his grandparents, his maternal
uncle, paternal aunt and his cross-cousins. At, and after, puberty, he
learns, in a more explicit and systematic manner, the principles of his
tribal kinship and law. This is done through initiation or training within
the horizon of the local community. Entering afterwards the stage of
active life, as a member of his clan he takes part in most tribal concerns —
economic, ceremonial, legal, warlike or religious. Soon, also, he makes a
choice of his matrimonial mate, according to the kinship rules regulating
marriage in his tribe.

One side of the whole process consists in the gradual assimilation of
the new ties to the old ones; the other side, in the creation of new in-
terests, adoption of new functions and formation of new ties. Even when
the old ties are purposely destroyed, as in initiation, the new ones are
built on their pattern. Throughout the process each extension leads to

146

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

the formation of new ties and thus to the weakening of the old ones,
but never to their complete obliteration, nor to the confusion of the
two sets. The new relationships receive some elements of the old ones,
which become incorporated in them, but invariably they contain new
elements also.

At the end, the individual finds himself not with one confused or
amalgamated mass of kindred, but rather, surrounded by a number of
gradually widening circles: the family, the collateral relatives, the local
kinsmen and relatives, the clansmen, and the relatives within the tribe;
and, cutting athwart this concentric system, his own new household and
his relatives-in-law.

The persistence of family ties

Why does the family pattern persist throughout these extensions, not
only in terminology, but in legal fiction, in totemic tradition and in the
character of the various rules? It must never be forgotten, of course, that
kinship at the tribal end is by no means identical with kinship at the
family end. As the ties widen, their original family character becomes
more and more attenuated and diluted by other ingredients. Tribal kinship
bears only a remote, at times mainly figurative, resemblance to the family
ties, but that it is built under their influence and as an extension of them
is beyond doubt.

The main force which brings about this extension is the extreme
strength of family ties. The power of the earliest family experiences to in-
fluence all subsequent social relations is a universal fact which was not suf-
ficiently appreciated until recently. In spite of their exaggerated claims
and fantastic distortions, psychoanalytic writers have helped to show how
all-pervading the family sentiments are in society, and how the reminis-
cences of paternal authority and of maternal tenderness enter into most
relations of later life.

In the small communities of savages, where all social relations are direct
and personal, where all co-operation is by actual contact, where solidarity
and substitution operate within groups of people constantly in touch with
each other, the family pattern can be adapted to all wider formations
much more concretely and liberally. In all the extensions the new bonds
and obligations are formed on account of the old ones; therefore, to an
extent, in their image. The unilateral principle deflecting the spread of
the family pattern to one side only, makes its sway within the clan only
the more concentrated, while it frees from its constraint a whole sphere
of relations — those between clans.

The final product of the process of kinship extensions: the clan sys-
tem, with its twofold relationships within the kinship group and across
the groups, is thus the natural product of the influences which drive
family kinship into wider spheres of action and of the unilateral principle.

KINSHIP

147

The clan and the family

Nothing is as important and diflScult in the study of primitive sociology
as the correct understanding of the nature of the clan and its relation to
the family. The primary and fundamental elements of parent to child
kinship — the bonds of procreation, the physiological services, the innate
emotional response — which make up the family bonds, vanish completely
from the relationship within the clan. Totemic identity, the mythological
fiction of common totemic descent, magical, religious and legal func-
tions, are new elements which have entered into it, and which constitute
the greatly modified kinship of the clan.

But though the clan is essentially non-reproductive, non-sexual and
non-parental, though it never is the primary basis and source of kinship,
its connection with the family is real and genetic. The clan grows out
of family kinship round one of the parents by the affirmation of the ex-
clusive procreative relevance of this one parent, by the injunction of legal
solidarity with one side of kindred, accompanied often by legal fiction
and linguistic metaphor.

The clan differs from the family, however, not only in the nature of
its bonds but also in structure. It is the result of the widest possible ex-
tension of kinship ties, but on one side only. While the family contains
essentially the two principles, male and female, present in procreation, in
the physiological division of functions and in sociological protection, the
clan is based upon the elimination of either the paternal or the maternal
element from relevant kinship. It is rather the clan of the relevant parent,
plus the clan of the irrelevant parent, plus the other clans related to Ego
by marriage or other forms of affinity, which together embrace the classi-
ficatory body of relatives. In fact the classificatory nomenclature always
refers to the tribe or the community or a wider portion of it, and never
to one clan only. It is the tribe, therefore, as a correlated system of clans,
or such portion of it as is embraced by the classificatory nomenclature,
which corresponds to the widest circle of kinship extensions.

It is an easy but dangerous mistake to maintain that "the classificatory
system and our own are the outcome of the social institutions of the clan
and the family respectively," and to say that as "among ourselves this
(the essential) social unit is the family" so "amongst most peoples of
rude culture the clan or other exogamous group is the essential unit of
social organization." ^ This view carries on Morgan's mistaken opinion that
the clan is a domestic institution, made ad hoc for purposes of group-
marriage, a mistake which has recently been reaffirmed in the phrase that
"the clan, like the family, is a reproductive group." ^ All this is a con-
tinuous source of error in that it construes the clan into an independent,

^W. H. R. Rivers, Kinship and Social Organization, 1914, pp. 74, 75.
^Robert Briffault, The Mothers. 1927.

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SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

self-sufficient kinship unit, whereas the clan is essentially a group cor-
related to other groups of a similar nature, and dependent upon their ex-
istence. In its simplest form the correlated system is reduced to two clans,
but never to one. It is this compound system which corresponds to the
family, which itself is a self-sufficient independent kinship unit. The clan
in fact never bears the imprint of extended full family kinship, but only
of one side of it.

It is a curious mistake to take savage fiction and linguistic simile at their
face value, and to regard, with Morgan, the clan as a ''domestic institu-
tion," made ad hoc for purposes of group-marriage; or with Rivers, to
imagine that the clan has been the foundation of classificatory nomencla-
ture in the same sense as the family is the basis of our own terminology;
or to affirm that "the clan, like the family, is a reproductive group."

The function of the clan system is neither generative nor domestic;
exogamy is not primarily an injunction to marry a woman of another
clan, but the prohibition of sexual intercourse within the clan. Again
the relations between the older and younger generation within the clan,
or between age-grades, are neither an equivalent nor a copy of the parent
to child relations — above all, not as regards reproductive functions!

The relation of the members of a clan is a modified and extended kinship
solidarity; it implies co-operation in most communal undertakings and
the exclusion of sexual interests. Thus some elements of the later parent
to child and brother to sister relationship are carried over into clanship,
but two elements never enter it: the matrimonial relation and early parent
to child relation. The first of these is extended, in a modified form, into the
relationship between different clans, members of which may pursue amuse-
ments and sexual interests in common, as between males and females; and
between individuals of the same sex, render each other reciprocal services
from group to group, and join in enterprises on a tribal scale.

We can now define kinship, in the first place, as the personal bonds
based upon procreation, socially interpreted; and, in the second place, as
the wider bonds derived from the primary ones by the process of gradual
extensions which occur in all communities during the life-history of the
individual. On the level of savagery and lower barbarism, the powerful per-
sistence of family bonds is given freer play, hence the extensions are more
numerous and more definitely systematized; they are backed up by legal
fictions of totemic descent; by ideas of one-sided procreation or mystic
identity; and they lead to the formation of wider groups such as the
clan, moiety or exogamous division.

Kinship is thus a class of social relations, which must be subdivided
into several varieties: primary kinship always founded on marriage and
family; and the derived forms, correlated with the group of cognate
households, the village-community and the clan. The terms of kinship,

KINSHIP

149

which are but linguistic expressions of all these relationships, have ob-
viously also a manifold meaning, which corresponds to the social reality.
Thus is explained the existence, side by side of individual and classificatory
terms, of the family and the clan, of the individual and communal aspects
of kinship. The enigmatic and apparently anomalous character of primi-
tive kinship vanishes with a closer scrutiny of the facts.

To explain kinship there is no need of an appeal to a fanciful history
of mankind, beginning with Promiscuity or Hetairism, passing through
Group-Marriage, Marital Gerontocracy and Anomalous Marriages, and
only ending, after many errors and efforts, in monogamous marriage.
Where empirical facts yield a sufficient explanation hypotheses are super-
fluous— they are a disease of method. Especially erroneous in these specula-
tions is the neglect of domesticity and the influences of everyday life in
early childhood, combined, as this neglect often is, with an over-emphasis
on sex. Sex, far from being the principal clue to kinship, plays only a sub-
ordinate part in its formation, separated as it is from parenthood by the
rule of legitimacy. It is the elimination of sex and not indulgence in it
which, through the rules of incest and exogamy, really influences kinship
and clanship.

The study of kinship, far from demonstrating the small importance
of the family, proves the tenacity of its bonds and their persistence through
life as a standard for all wider social relations. The age-long experience
of mankind, which Anthropology alone can unravel, teaches us that the
institutions of marriage and family have never been absent in human
history, that they form the indispensable foundation for the structure of
human society, and that, however they might become modified in the
future, they will never be destroyed nor their influence seriously impaired.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

classical Works

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Maine, H. S., Ancient Law, 1861.

Morgan, L. H., Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family,
1871.

McLennan, J. F., Studies in Ancient History, 1886.
Crawley, A. E., The Mystic Rose, 1902; new ed. 1927.

Lang, A., "The Origin of Terms of Human Relationship," Proc. Brit. Acad., 1907
(Vol. 3).

Frazer, J. G., Totemism and Exogamy, 1910.

"Westermarck, E. A., The History of Human Marriage, 5 th ed. 1921.
Recent Theoretical Studies

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150

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

Rivers, W. H. R., Kinship and Social Organisation, 1914; Social Organisation,
1924.

Lowie, R. H., Culture and Ethnology, 1917; Primitive Society, 1920.
Gifford, E. W., Calif ornian Kinship Terminologies, 1922.
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Descriptive Accounts

Radcliflfe-Brown, A. R., "Three Tribes of Western Australia," Jour. Roy. Anthr.

Inst., 1913 (Vol. 43); The Andaman Islanders, 1925.
Armstrong, "W. E., Rossel Island, 1928.

Malinowski, B., The Family among the Australian Aborigines, 1913; Crime and
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Western Melanesia, 1928.

Rivers, W. H. R., The Todas, 1906; The History of Melanesian Society, 1914.

Thurnwald, R., Die Gemeinde der Bdnaro, 1921.

Junod, H. A., The Life of a South African Tribe, 1927.

Smith, E. W., and Dale, A. M., The Ila-Speaking Peoples of Northern Rhodesia,
1920.

Rattray, R. S., Ashanti, 1925.

Spier, L., "The Distribution of Kinship Systems in North America," Univ. of

Washington Pub. in Anthropology, 1925 (Vol. 1).
Kroeber, A. L., "California Kinship Systems," Univ. of Calif. Pub. in Anthrop.,

1917 (Vol. 12).
Czaplicka, M. A., Aboriginal Siberia, 1914.

Seligman, B. Z., "Studies in Semitic Kinship," Bull. School of Oriental Studies,
London, 1923 (Vol. 3).

Ilil

THE IMPASSE ON KINSHIP

Much ink has flowed on the problem of blood — "blood" symbolizing in
most human languages, and that not only European, the ties of kinship,
that is the ties derived from procreation. "Blood" almost became dis-
coloured out of all recognition in the process. Yet blood will rebel against
any tampering, and flow its own way and keep its own colour. By
which florid metaphor I simply mean that the extravagantly conjectural
and bitterly controversial theorizing which we have had on primitive
kinship has completely obscured the subject, and all but blinded the ob-
servers of actual primitive life. Professor Radcliffe-Brown is all too correct
when he says "that theories of the form of conjectural history, whether

This article appeared in Man: A Monthly Record of Anthropological Science,
published under the direction of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great
Britain and Ireland, February 1930 (Vol. 30, No. 2), pp. 19-29; reprinted
by permission of the Honorary Editor of Man.

KINSHIP

151

'evolutionary' or 'diffusionist* exert a very pernicious influence on the
work of the field ethnologist," and he gives a very significant example
of the fact-blindness to which this leads. ^

And these conjectural theories on kinship have simply flooded anthro-
pological literature from the times of Bachofen, Morgan and McLennan,
to the recent revival in kinship enthusiasm, headed by Rivers and his
school, A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, the late A. Bernard Deacon, T. T. Barnard,
Mrs. Reinhold Hoernle, Mrs. B. Z. Seligman, not to mention myself, or
the Californian kinship-trinity, Kroeber, Lowie and Gifford — one and all
influenced by the work of Rivers. With all this, the problem has remained
enshrined in an esoteric atmosphere. The handful of us, the enrages or
initiates of kinship, are prepared to wade through the sort of kinship
algebra and geometry which has gradually developed; memorize long lists
of native words, follow up complicated diagrams and formulae, sweat
through dry documents, endure long deductive arguments, as well as the
piling of hypothesis upon hypothesis.

The average anthropologist, however, somewhat mystified and perhaps
a little hostile, has remained outside the narrow ring of devotees. He has
his doubts whether the effort needed to master the bastard algebra of kin-
ship is really worth while. He feels, that, after all, kinship is a matter
of flesh and blood, the result of sexual passion and maternal affection, of
long intimate daily life, and of a host of personal intimate interests. Can
all this really be reduced to formulae, symbols, perhaps equations? Is it
sound, hopefully to anticipate "that the time will come when we shall
employ symbols for the different relationships . . . and many parts of the
description of the social systems of savage tribes will resemble a work
on mathematics in which the results will be expressed by symbols, in
some cases even in the form of equations"? ^

A very pertinent question might be asked as to whether we should
really get nearer the family life, the affections and tender cares, or again
the dark and mysterious forces which the psycho-analyst banishes into the
Unconscious but which often break out with dramatic violence — whether
we could come nearer to this, the real core of kinship, by the mere use
of mock-algebra. There is no doubt that whatever value the diagrams
and equations might have must always be derived from the sociological
and psychological study of the intimate facts of kinship, on which the
algebra should be based. The average common-sense anthropologist or ob-
server of savages feels that this personal approach to kinship is sadly lack-
ing. There is a vast gulf between the pseudo-mathematical treatment of
the too-learned anthropologist and the real facts of savage life. Nor is this
merely the feeling of the non-specialist. I must frankly confess that there
is not a single account of kinship in which I do not find myself puzzled
^See Man. 1929, No. 35.

^W. H. R. Rivers, The History of Melanesian Society, 1914, 2 vols. Vol. I, p. 10.

152

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

by some of this spuriously scientific and stilted mathematization of kin-
ship facts and disappointed by the absence of those intimate data of family
life, full-blooded descriptions of tribal and ceremonial activities, thorough
enumerations of the economic and legal characteristics of family, kindred
and clan, which alone make kinship a real fact to the reader.^

And when, after all the floods of ink on kinship, the average anthro-
pologist finds that an authority like Professor Westermarck maintains
that most work on classificatory terminologies "has been a source of error
rather than knowledge"; when he finds that A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, B.
Malinowski and Brenda Z. Seligman cannot agree as to what they mean
when they use the terms kinship, descent, unilateral and bilateral; when
he discovers that no sooner has Mrs. Seligman restated the fundamental
concept of classificatory terminologies than she is challenged in letters to
Man; then he really feels justified in mistrusting all this terribly elaborate
pseudo-mathematical apparatus and in discounting most of the labour
which must have been spent on it.

I believe that kinship is really the most difficult subject of social anthro-
pology; I believe that it has been approached in a fundamentally wrong
way; and I believe that at present an impasse has been reached. I am
convinced, however, that there is a way out of this impasse, and that
some of the recent work, notably that of A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, of
Brenda 2. Seligman and of the Californian trinity, has placed the prob-
lem on the correct foundation. This has been done by a full recognition
of the importance of the family and by the application of what is now
usually called the functional method of anthropology — a method which
consists above all in the analysis of primitive institutions as they work at
present, rather than in the reconstruction of a hypothetical past.^

^In a book on kinship which I am preparing I shall substantiate this indictment in
detail. To mention only the very best field-work: can anyone really unravel Prof.
R. Thurnwald's diagrams and synoptics of kinship in his otherwise excellent Gemeinde
der Bdnaro? The "kinship systems" of the Toda, Arunta, Ashanti, Ba Ila, of the Cali-
fornians and Melanesians, amount to little more than incorrectly translated fragments
of a vocabulary. All our data on kinship are insufficient linguistically and inadequate
sociologically.

*I would like to mention Edward Westermarck and Ernest Grosse as the forerunners
in matters of kinship of the modern movement. Perhaps the first monographic description
of the family, from an area where its very existence has been most contested, is my
Family among the Australian Aborigines (1913). In the same year there appeared an
excellent article on "Family," in Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, written
by E. N. Fallaize. More recently Kroeber, in his Zuni Kin and Clan [1917], and Lowie
in his field-work on the Crow Indians and in his book on Primitive Society [1920] have
very strongly emphasized the functional point of view in reference to kinship. Quite
lately, in her remarkable article on "Incest and Descent," in the f.R.A.I., Mrs. Seligman
has definitely announced her conversion to the functional point of view and her recogni-
tion of the fundamental importance of the family. (Vol. LIX, p. 234.)

KINSHIP

153

All this recent work is bound to lead us to the correct solution of the
many more or less superficial puzzles, as well as of the real and profound
problems of kinship. This work is still somewhat diffused and chaotic,
however, and there is the need of a comprehensive contribution which will
organize and systematically integrate the results of the functional work,
and correct a few mistakes still prevalent. In my forthcoming book on
kinship I am making an attempt at such a systematic treatment. Here I
propose to indicate in a preliminary fashion some of its results.^

It is unnecessary, perhaps, in addressing the readers of Man, to labour
the point of kinship remaining still in an impasse. The several interesting
articles in the present periodical, as well as in the Journal, show how pro-
foundly even the few most devoted and most spiritually related specialists
disagree with one another.^ As a member of the inner ring, I may say

^ The subject of kinship, and above all the fact that it invariably originates in the
family, vv^as the starting point of my anthropological work. The book on The Family
among the Australian Aborigines was begun in 1909 and published in 1913. I laid down
there a number of principles and concretely worked out some of my general ideas. These
I was able more fully to substantiate in my subsequent work in the field and in the
study. The development of my views on kinship can be followed from my first field-work
on the Mailu, where my treatment is still largely conventional and incorrect up to my
article s.v. "Kinship" in the 14th Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and my two
volumes on sex in savage life. The list of my contributions fully or partially devoted to
kinship follows:

1. The Family among the Australian Aborigines, London, 1913.

2. "The Natives of Mailu," Transactions of the R. Soc. of S. Australia, Adelaide, 1915.

3. "The Psychology of Sex in Primitive Societies," Psyche, Oct. 1923.

4. "Psycho-Analysis and Anthropology," Psyche, Apr. 1924.

5. "Complex and Myth in Mother-Right," Psyche, Jan. 1925.

6. "Forschungen in einer mutterrechtlichen Gemeinschaft," Zeitschrift fur V6l\er'

psychologic und Soziologie, Mar. 1925.

7. "Address on Anthropology and Social Hygiene," Foundations of Social Hygiene,

London, 1926.

8. "Anthropology," article in Ency. Brit., additional volumes, 1926.

9. "The Anthropological Study of Sex," Verhandlungen des I. Internationden Kon-

gresses fiir Sexualforschung, Berlin, 1926.

10. Crime and Custom in Savage Society, London, 1926.

11. Sex and Repression in Savage Society, London, 1927 (embodies 4 and 5).

12. The Sexual Life of Savages, London, 1929 (embodies 3 and 6).

13. "Kinship," article in Ency. Brit., 14th Edit., 1929 [Chapt. 6 herein].

14. "Marriage," article in Ency. Brit., 14th Edit., 1929 [Chapt. 1 herein].

15. "Social Anthropology," article in Ency. Brit., 14th Edit., 1929 (revised version

of 8).

'Cf. I.R.A.I., Vol. LVIII, p. 533, and Vol. LIX, p. 231, articles by Mrs. B. Z. Selig-
man; Man, 1929, No. 35, by A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, and No. 148, by E. E. Evans-
Pritchard; and letters by Mrs. Seligman (1929, No. 84), by A. R. Radcliffe-Brown
(1929, No. 157), and by Lord Raglan (1930, No. 13).

154

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

that whenever I meet Mrs. Sehgman or Dr. Lowie or discuss matters with
Radcliflfe-Brown or Kroeber, I become at once aware that my partner
does not understand anything in the matter, and I end usually with the
feeling that this also applies to myself. This refers also to all our writ-
ings on kinship, and is fully reciprocal.

The impasse is really due to the inheritance of false problems from
anthropological tradition. We are still enmeshed in the question as to
whether kinship in its origins was collective or individual, based on the
family or the clan. This problem looms very large in the writings of the
late W. H. R. Rivers, of whom most of us in the present generation are
pupils by direct teaching or from the reading of his works. Another false
problem is that of the origins and significance of classificatory systems
of nomenclature. This problem, or any problem starting from the classi-
ficatory nature of kinship terminologies, must be spurious, because the
plain fact is that classificatory terminologies do not exist and never could
have existed.^ This sounds like a paradox but is a mere truism which I
propose to develop later in another article. Connected with the classi-
ficatory obsession, there was the rage for the explanation of queer terms
by anomalous marriages, which led to one or two half-truths but also
to half a dozen capital errors and misconceptions. The conception of
mother-right and father-right as successive stages or self-contained entities,
recently so well and convincingly stigmatized by Radcliffe-Brown (Man,
1929, No. 3 5), has been embodied in yet another monument of brilliantly
speculative erroneousness in Briffault's work on The Mothers.

The real trouble in all this is that we have been hunting for origins
of kinship before we had properly understood the nature of kinship. We
inquired whether mother-right preceded father-right or vice versa, with-
out allowing the facts to convince us, as they must, that mother-right
and father-right are always indissolubly bound up with each other. Be-
cause we have profoundly misunderstood the linguistic nature of kinship
terms, we are able to make the monstrous mistake of regarding them as
"survivals," as petrified remains of a previous social state. It is almost
ludicrous with what naivete Morgan assumes throughout his writings
that the terminologies of kinship invariably lag one whole "stage of de-
velopment"— neither more nor less — behind the sociological status in
which they are found; and yet that they mirror the past sociological
status perfectly. The mere logical circle of the argument is appalling.
But even worse is the complete misconception of the nature of kinship
terminologies which, in fact, are the most active and the most effective
expressions of human relationship, expressions which start in early child-
hood, which accompany human intercourse throughout life, which em-

^ For the most recent, brief, clear and most erroneous statements concerning the nature
of classificatory terminologies, see the letter in Man by Mr. J. D. Unwin (1929, No. 124).

KINSHIP

155

body all the most personal, passionate, and intimate sentiments of a man
or woman.

The modern or functional anthropologist proposes, therefore, to under-
stand what kinship really means to the native; he wishes to grasp how
terminologies of kinship are used and what they express; he wishes to
see clearly the relations between the family, the clan and the tribe. But
the more he studies all these elements of the problem and their inter-rela-
tion, the more clearly he realizes that we have to do here not with a num-
ber of isolated entities but with the parts of an organically connected whole.
In the first place, the family and the clan, for instance, which have hith-
erto been regarded as domestic institutions at various stages of develop-
ment, appear invariably together. That is, while the family exists in many
societies alone, the clan never replaces it, but is found as an additional in-
stitution. Again, though certain tribes use kinship terms in a wider sense,
they also use them in the narrower sense, denoting the actual members
of the family. Or, again, there is no such thing as pure mother-right or
father-right, only a legal over-emphasis on one side of kinship, accom-
panied very often by a strong emotional, at times even customary, reac-
tion against this over-emphasis. And, in all communities, whatever the legal
system might be, both lines are de facto counted and influence the legal,
economic, religious and emotional life of the individual. It is, therefore,
nothing short of nonsensical to perform this sort of illegitimate pre-
liminary surgery, to cut the organically connected elements asunder, and
''explain" them by placing the fragments on a diagram of imaginary de-
velopment. The real problem is to find out how they are related to each
other, and how they function, that is, what part they play respectively
within the society, what social needs they satisfy, and what influence they
exert.

To put it clearly, though crudely, I should say that the family is al-
ways the domestic institution par excellence. It dominates the early life
of the individual; it controls domestic co-operation; it is the stage of
earliest parental cares and education. The clan, on the other hand, is
never a domestic institution. Bonds of clanship develop much later in life,
and, though they develop out of the primary kinship of the family, this
development is submitted to the one-sided distortion of matrilineal or
patrilineal legal emphasis, and it functions in an entirely different sphere
of interests: legal, economic, above all, ceremonial. Once the functional
distinction is made between the two modes of grouping, the family and
the clan, most of the spurious problems and fictitious explanations dis-
solve into the speculative mist out of which they were born.

I shall have, however, to qualify and make much more detailed the
above contention. Here I only wish to point out that kinship presents
really several facets corresponding to the various phases or stages of its

156

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

development within the life history of the individual. For kinship is the
phenomenon which begins earliest in life and which lasts longest, even
as the word mother is usually the first word formed and often the last
word uttered. Kinship as it appears in the social horizon of a developed
adult tribesman is the result of a long process of extensions and trans-
formations. It starts in early Hfe with the physiological events of pro-
creation; yet even these are profoundly modified in human society by
cultural influences. The original ties of kinship, which I believe firmly are
invariably individual, later on develop, multiply and become largely com-
munal. So that, at the end, the individual finds himself the centre of a
complex system of multiple ties; a member of several groups: the family,
always; the extended household, in many communities; the local group,
almost invariably; the clan, very often; and the tribe, without any excep-
tion. I am convinced that if the study of kinship ties had been carried
out in the field along the life history of the individual, if terminologies,
legal systems, tribal and household arrangements had been studied in
process of development and not merely as fixed products — that we would
have been completely free of the whole nightmare of spurious problems
and fantastic conjectures. It is almost an irony in the history of anthro-
pology that the most ardent evolutionists as well as the most embittered
prophets of the historical method have completely missed development
and history of kinship in the one case in which this development and
history can be studied empirically.^

Whenever we become convinced that a phenomenon must be studied in
its development, our attention naturally must become focussed on its
origins, and let us remember that here we are deaHng, not with a fanci-
ful, reconstructed evolution, but with the observable development of
kinship in human life and that origins here mean simply the whole set of
initial conditions which determine the attitudes of the actors in the kinship
drama.

These actors are obviously three in number at the beginning — the two
parents and their offspring. And, at first sight, it might appear that the
drama itself is of no real interest; for is it not merely the physiological
process of conception, gestation and child-birth? In reality, however, the
process is never a merely physiological one in human societies. However
primitive the community, the facts of conception, pregnancy and child-
birth are not left to Nature alone, but they are reinterpreted by cultural

^My friend Mr. T. J. A. Yates suggests the adjective "biographical" as the simplest
description of the method of approach to kinship through its study along the life history
of the individual. I shall speak in future of the "biographical method" in order to define
what might be called sociological ontogeny. Mr. Yates is now engaged on a comparative
study of the functional correlation of mother-right and father-right.

KINSHIP

157

tradition: in every community we have a theory as to the nature and causes
of conception; we have a system of customary observances, religious,
magical or legal, which define the behaviour of the mother, at times also
of the father; we have, specifically, a number of taboos observed during
pregnancy by both parents.

Thus, even the biological foundation of kinship becomes invariably a
cultural and not merely a natural fact. This unquestionably correct prin-
ciple has become at the hands of some modern anthropologists the starting
point for a new reinterpretation of Morgan's hypothesis of a primitive
communal marriage. Rivers, the most conspicuous modern supporter of
Morgan's theories, is fully aware that group-marriage implies group-
parenthood. Yet group-parenthood, above all group-motherhood, seems to
be an almost unthinkable hypothesis. As such it has been in fact ridiculed
by Andrew Lang, E. Westermarck and N. W. Thomas. Rivers, however,
following in this the brilliant suggestions of Durkheim, Dargun, and
Kohler, argues that, since cultural influences can modify maternity in
every other respect, it can transform it even from an individual mother-
hood into a sort of sociological group-motherhood. This writer, and a
number of his followers, notably Mr. Briffault, would lead us to believe
that what I like to call the initial situation of kinship is not individual
but communal.

I have adduced these very recent hypotheses about the initial situation of
kinship in order to show that its study, far from being an obvious and
superfluous statement of a physiological fact, raises a number of sociolog-
ical questions, even of controversial points. With all this, the study of
real empirical facts seems to show that the communal interpretation of the
initial situation is definitely erroneous. I can but anticipate here the full
presentation of my argument, and say that while I recognize that kinship,
even in its origins, is a cultural rather than a biological fact, this culturally
defined kinship is, I maintain, invariably individual. All the primitive
theories of procreation, though they are a mixture of animistic beliefs
and crude empirical observations, invariably define parenthood as an in-
dividual bond. The taboos of pregnancy, the rites observed at certain
stages of gestation, customs of the couvade type, ceremonial seclusion of
mother and child, all these individualize the relationship between the actual
parents and their offspring.

While most of these facts refer to the individual tie between mother
and child, a number of them, such as the couvade, the taboos kept by
the pregnant woman's husband, his economic contributions towards preg-
nancy ceremonies, culturally define paternity, and at the same time in-
dividualize this relationship. There is one fact, however, of paramount
importance as regards paternity, a generalization so cogent, so universally
valid, that it has, to my knowledge, been almost completely overlooked, as

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SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

it so often happens to the ''obvious." This generalization I have called, in
some of my previous writings, the principle of legitimacy^ This principle
declares that, in all human societies, a father is regarded by law, custom
and morals as an indispensable element of the procreative group. The
woman has to be married before she is allowed legitimately to conceive,
or else a subsequent marriage or an act of adoption gives the child full
tribal or civil status. Otherwise the child of the unmarried mother is
definitely stigmatized by an inferior and anomalous position in society.
This is as true of the polyandrous Todas (where the child has, in fact,
to be sociologically assigned to one father among the several husbands) ;
of the matrilineal Melanesians, of primitive peoples in Australia, in North
America, and in Africa, as of monogamous and Christian Europe. The
principle of legitimacy works at times in indirect ways, but on the whole
the law which demands marriage as the preliminary to family seems to
be universal.

I beheve that a correct inductive survey of all the evidence at our dis-
posal would lead us to the answer that the initial situation of kinship is
a compound of biological and cultural elements, or rather that it consists
of the facts of individual procreation culturally reinterpreted; that every
human being starts his sociological career within the small family group,
and that whatever kinship might become later on in Hfe, it is always in-
dividual kinship at first. At the same time this general statement gives us
only the broad outlines of the initial situation; this becomes from the out-
set deeply modified by such elements as maternal or paternal counting of
kinship, matrilocal or patrilocal residence, the relative position of husband
and wife in a community, length of lactation, types of seclusion and
taboos. The study of the initial situation, far from being trite and insig-
nificant, is a rich field of sociological investigation, and a field on which
the anthropologist and the modern psychologist meet in common interest.

With the conclusion that individual parenthood, defined by cultural
as well as biological forces, forms invariably the initial situation of kinship,
the foundations of a correct theory have been laid. But the task is not
yet complete. What I have named the initial situation is important in
its influence on later life. Parenthood interests the sociologists not only
in itself, whether as an exhibition of human tenderness or as an example
of the cultural transformation of instinct, but rather in that it is the
starting point of most other sociological relationships and the prototype
of the characteristic social attitudes of a community. It is, therefore, the
processes of the extension of kinship from its extremely simple begin-
nings in plain parenthood, to its manifold ramifications and complexities

"Cf. article on the "Psychology of Sex in Primitive Societies," Psyche, Oct. 1923; Sex
and Repression, 1927, Part V; Chapter VII of the Sexual Life of Savages; article on
"Kinship" in Ency. Brit., 1929 [Chapt. 6 of Sex, Culture, and Myth]. Cf. also The
Family, Chapters V and VI.

KINSHIP

159

in adult membership of tribe, clan and local group, which, in my opinion,
forms the real subject-matter of the study of kinship. It is in the study
of these processes that the true relationship between clan and family, be-
tween classificatory systems and individual attitudes, between the socio-
logical and the biological elements of kinship, can be discovered.

Most of the mistakes were due to the following false argument: all kin-
ship is biological; the cohesion of a clan is based on kinship; ergo, clanship
has a direct biological basis. This conclusion has led to such capital
howlers as that "the clan marries the clan and begets the clan"; that **the
clai , like the family, is a reproductive group"; and that "a domestic group,
other than the family" is the environment of primitive childhood. The
perpetrators of these and similar are no lesser anthropologists than Fison,
Spencer and Gillen, Briffault, and Rivers.

All this nonsense could never have obsessed some of the clearest minds
in anthropology had the study of the initial situation been made the start-
ing point, and the study of subsequent processes of extension the main
theme, of social anthropology. For the "origins of the clan system" are
not to be found in some nebulous past by imaginary speculations. They
happen nowadays under our very eyes. Any reasonably intelligent and
unprejudiced anthropologist who works within a tribe with clan organiza-
tion can see them taking place.

I have, myself, witnessed the "origins of the clan" in Melanesia, and
I think that even from this one experience I am able to draw a universally
valid conclusion, or at least a generalization which ought to be universally
tested. Especially since all the fragmentary evidence from other areas fits
perfectly well into the scheme based on Melanesian facts.

The process by which clanship and other forms of communal kinship
develop out of the initial situation is in reality not easy to grasp or to
define. The main difficulty consists in the fact that it is a lengthy and in-
terrupted process; that its threads are many, and that the pattern can
only be discovered after an integration of detailed and intimate observa-
tions over a lengthy period of time. And so far, it has been the custom
of competent sociologists to pay only flying visits to savage tribes, for
which practice the euphemism of "survey-work" has been invented. While
the long-residence amateur was unable to see the wood for the trees.

But there is one definite source of difficulty. This is the fact that in
the biographical development of kinship we have a two-fold process, or
rather two correlated processes, one, roughly, of consolidation and exten-
sion of family ties, the other a process in which the family is over-ridden,
in which kinship is submitted to a process of one-sided distortion, and
in which the group or communal character of human relations is defijiitely
emphasized at the expense of the individual character.

I shall proceed to amplify this statement, but I want to mention here
that this duality of kinship growth has given rise to most of the mis-

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SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

conceptions, above all to the quarrel as to whether primitive kinship is
communal or individual, whether it is essentially bilateral or unilateral.^^
Kinship in primitive communities has invariably the individual aspect,
it has in most cases also the communal one. Each aspect is the result of a
different process, it is formed by different educational mechanisms, and it
has its own function to fulfil. The real scientific attitude is, not to quarrel
as to which of the two actually existing phases of kinship has a moral
right or a logical justification for its existence but to study their relation
to each other.

Let me first briefly outline the process of consolidation of the family.
For it must be remembered that, clan or no clan, the individual's own
family remains a stable unit throughout his lifetime. The parents, in most
societies, not only educate and materially equip the child, but they also
watch over his adolescence, control his marriage, become the tender and
solicitous grandparents of his children and in their old age often rely on
his help. Thus the early bonds of kinship, which start in the initial situa-
tion, persist throughout life. But they undergo a long process which, on
the one hand, as we have said, is one of consolidation, and on the other
one of partial undermining and dissolution.

The consolidation in its early phases starts with the physiological de-
pendence of the infant upon his parents, which shades into the early train-
ing of impulses, and that again passes into education. With education
there are associated already certain wider sociological implications of par-
enthood. The child has to be educated in certain arts and crafts, and
this implies that he will inherit the occupations, the tools, the lands or
hunting-grounds of his father or his mother's brother. Education, again,
embraces the training in tribal traditions, but tribal traditions refer to
social organization, to the role which the child will play in society,
and this the child usually takes over from his father or his mother's
brother.

Thus, already, at the phase of education, kinship may either simply and
directly confirm the father's role in the family, or, in matriHneal societies,
It may partly disrupt the family by introducing an outsider as the man
in power.

At the same time the dependence of the child upon the household varies
to a considerable extent in different societies. He or she may either re-
mam as an inmate in the parents' house, sleeping, eating and spending
most of his time there; or else the child moves somewhere else, becomes
influenced by other people, and forms new bonds. In communities where
there are ceremonies of initiation the sociological function of such customs
consists often in divorcing the child from the family, above all from
Cf. for instance the interesting correspondence between Mrs. Seligman and Professor
Radcliffe-Brown in Man, 1929, Nos. 84 and 157.

KINSHIP

161

maternal influences, and in making him aware of his unilateral bonds of
clanship, especially with his male clansmen. This is obviously an influence
of a disruptive rather than a consolidating character so far as the family
is concerned.

When it comes to adolescence and sexual life, there is an enormous
variety of configurations but usually sexuality removes the boy or girl
from the family and through the rules of exogamy makes him or her
aware of their participation in the clan. At marriage, on the other hand,
the own father and mother, at times some other near relative, always in-
dividual, come into prominence. The founding of a new household means
to a large extent a final detachment from the parental one. But the par-
ents, whether of the husband or the wife, reaffirm the relationship by
the already mentioned fact of grandparenthood. Finally, in old age, new
duties define the relationship between an adult man and his decrepit fa-
ther or mother. Thus, throughout all the varieties which we find scattered
over the globe, in main outline we find that the individual relation of
offspring to parents develops, receives several shocks and diminutions, be-
comes reaffirmed again, but always remains one of the dominant senti-
ments in human life, manifesting itself in moral rules, in legal obligations,
in religious ritual. For, last not least, at death, parent or offspring alike
have to fulfil some of the principal mortuary duties and, in ancestor-cults
— which, in a more or less pronounced form are to be found everywhere
— the spirits of the departed are always dependent on their lineal descend-
ants. The consolidation of family ties, and of the concept of family
and household, manifests itself in the extensions of the early kinship at-
titudes to members of other households. Thus in most primitive com-
munities, whatever be their way of counting descent, the households of
the mother's sister and of the father's brother play a considerable part
and in many ways become substitute homes for the child.

I have stressed, so far, the elements of consolidation, let me now muster
those of disruption. The actual weaning, the removal from the family,
especially from the mother's control, outside influences such as that of
the mother's brother, at times of the father's sister or brother, initiation
and the formation of a new household — all these influences run counter
to the original ties and militate against the persistence of parental bonds
and influences. At the same time most of these disruptive influences are
not really negations of kinship. They are rather one-sided distortions of
the original parental relationship. Thus, the mother's brother, in matri-
lineal societies, becomes the nucleus of the matrilineal clan. The training
in tribal law, especially and dramatically given at initiation, while it re-
moves the boy from the exclusive tutelage of the family, imbues him with
ideas of clan identity and solidarity.

Clan identity becomes especially prominent in certain phases of tribal
life. During big tribal gatherings, whether for economic enterprise or

2^2 SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

war, or enjoyment, the bonds of clanship become prominent, the family
almost disappears. Especially is this the case in large religious or magical
ceremonies such as those reported from Central Australia, Papua, Melanesia
and the various districts of North America. On such occasions there takes
place a recrystallization of the sociological structure within the com-
munity, which brings vividly to the minds of young and old the reality
of the clan system.

We can see, therefore, that the clan develops as a derived sociological
form of grouping by empirical processes which can be followed along
the life history of the individual, which always take place later in life —
full clanship taking hold of an individual only at maturity — and which
embrace a type of interests very different from those obtaining within
the family.

As I have tried to show elsewhere already there is something almost
absurd in the tendency of anthropologists to treat the family and the
clan as equivalent units which can replace one another in the evolution
of mankind. The relation between parents and child — that is, family
relations — are based on procreation, on the early physiological cares given
by the parents to the child and on the innate emotional attitudes which
unite offspring and parents. These elements are never found in clanship.
This institution, on the other hand, is based on factors which are quite
alien to the family: on the identity of a totemic nature; on mythological
fictions of a unilateral common descent from an ancestor or an ancestress;
and a number of religious or magical duties and observances. It may be
safely laid down that the family, based on marriage, is the only domestic
institution of mankind, that is, the only institution the function of which
is the procreation, the early cares and the elementary training of the off-
spring. Kinship thus always rests on the family and begins within the
family. The clan is essentially a non-reproductive, non-sexual and non-
parental group, and it is never the primary source and basis of kinship.
But the clan always grows out of the family, forming round one of the
two parents by the exclusive legal emphasis on the one side of kinship, at
times backed by a one-sided reproductive theory. The functions of the
clan are mostly legal and ceremonial, at times also magical and economic.

Family and clan differ thus profoundly in origins, in the functions which
they fulfil, and in the nature of the bonds which unite their members.
They differ also in structure. The family always embraces the two princi-
ples essential to procreation — motherhood and fatherhood. The clan is
based on the partial negation of one of these principles. But the difference
goes farther. The family is self-contained as regards its functions. The
^Sce B. Malinovvski, article on "Kinship," in Ency. Brit., 14th Edit., 1929 [Chapt.
6 of Sex, Culture, and Myth], esp. "The Clan and the Family" [pp. 147-149 of Sex,
Culture, and Myth],

KINSHIP

163

clan, by the very nature of its formation, is a dependent and correlated
unit. The body of actually recognized relatives in the widest, that is
classificatory, sense never consists of the clansmen alone. It embraces the
own clansmen — that is, kinsmen on the relevant side — the clansmen of
the irrelevant parent, the clanspeople of the consort, and members of the
other clans who take part in the communal game of exchange of services,
so characteristic of the tribes organized on the basis of the clan. It is
the tribe, as the body of conjoined and mutually related clans, which
at the classificatory level corresponds to the family. The sociological
equivalence of family and clan, which has played so much havoc with so-
cial anthropology, is a misapprehension due to the omission of functional
analysis and of the biographical method in the study of kinship problems.

I have started with a protest against the subordination of the flesh and
blood side of kinship to the formal, pseudo-mathematical treatment to
which it has been so often subjected. I have justified my criticism in a
positive manner by showing that there are fundamental problems of kin-
ship which demand a great deal of first-hand sociological observation and
of theoretical analysis: problems which must be solved even before we
start kinship algebra. The initial situation, the principle of legitimacy, the
two correlated processes of extension, the multiplicity of kinship group-
ings— this is an extensive field for full-blooded sociological research in the
field and in the study. Through the biographical approach and the func-
tional analysis which I have advocated, most of these problems become
transferred to the realm of empirical research from that of hypothetical
reconstruction.

There remain a number of questions, however, on which I was hardly
able to touch, above all the notorious puzzle of classificatory terminologies.
I have left this latter question on one side on purpose: words grow out
of life, and kinship words are nothing else but counters or labels for social
relations. Even as, sociologically, kinship is a compound and complex net-
work of ties, so every native nomenclature consists of several layers or
systems of kinship designations. One system is used only to the parents and
members of the household. Another stratum of kinship appellations is ex-
tended to the next nearest circle of relatives, the mother's sister and
brother, the father's brother and sister, their offspring and the grand-
parents. Yet another type of kinship words applies to the wider relatives
of the immediate neighbourhood. Finally there are kinship words used
in a truly classificatory sense, based partly but never completely on the
distinctions of clanship. The sounds used in these different senses are the
same, but the uses, that is the meanings, are distinct. Each use, moreover,
the individual, the extended, the local and the classificatory, is differ-
entiated by phonetic distinctions, however slight, by fixed circumlocu-

164

SEX, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY

tions, and by contextual indices.^- It is only through the extraordinary in-
competence of the linguistic treatment in kinship terminologies that the
compound character of primitive terminologies has, so far, been completely
overlooked. "Classificatory terminologies" really do not exist, as I have
said already. But I shall have to return to this question once more.

After that, it will be possible for me to criticize directly the logical
game of kinship algebra from Morgan and Kohler to Rivers and Mrs. B.
Z. Seligman; and to show within which limits this game is legitimate
and where it becomes spurious. There remain one or two questions: the
definition of kinship and descent, on which I have been recently criticized
by A. R. Radchffe-Brown in the present periodical; the nature of kinship
extensions, where I have to deal with the strictures of my friend E. E.
Evans-Pritchard (also in Man) ; the nature of the functional treatment
of kinship, where I have drawn some kindly, but I think irrelevant, criti-
cism from Lord Raglan in the last number of Man.

^^Some points here briefly touched upon will be found elaborated in Chapter XVI,
Section 6, of my Sexual Life of Savages, and in my Memoir on "The Problem of Meaning
in Primitive Languages" in Ogden and Richards's Meaning of Meaning.

PART TWO

llllilll CULTURE AND
MYTH

iiiiiiii 7 iiiiiiiiiiiiimii

CULTURE AS A DETERMINANT OF BEHAVIOR

That we are passing through a cultural crisis of unprecedented magnitude
and of a definitely putrid quality nobody doubts, except, of course, the
999 in 1000 intellectual ostriches who prefer to remain head in sand
rather than to face realities. There are also those who react with complete
defeatism; who are satisfied with nihilistic prophecies of decay and down-
fall. Oswald Spengler has made himself the most popular and decorative
spokesman of this group.

But there are still a few left who prefer to stand for intellectual integ-
rity, and fight even if victory be uncertain. These can see only one way
out of the straits — the establishment of a rational and empirical, that is,
scientific, control of human affairs. This is the faith of those united in
the present intellectual venture; it is the aim and thesis of this volume.

In this chapter I attempt to show that cultural anthropology can and
must provide the foundations of the social sciences. It can do this by
defining the nature of human associations, of economic pursuits, legal
institutions, magical and religious practices, studied within the widest
range accessible to observation and analysis. In order to do this, it is
necessary to re-define the aims and scope of cultural anthropology. This
science is, in fact, at present detaching itself more and more from the
agreeable and fascinating hunt for the exotic, the savage, and the diversi-
fied. As a science, it has to concentrate more and more on the universally
human and fundamental, even when this lacks the touch of sensationalism

This article was, in its original form, a paper delivered at the Harvard Ter-
centenary Conference of Arts and Sciences, Sept. 7, 193 6. It was published in,
and is reprinted by permission of the publishers of, Factors Determining Human
Behavior, by Edgar Douglas Adrian and others, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard
University Press, Copyright, 1937, by The President and Fellows of Harvard
College. It was republished, after the author's additions, in Human Affairs, edited
by R. B. Cattell, Macmillan, 1937.

The first part of this essay (pp. 167-174) appeared in Human Affairs, hut
was not included in the Harvard address.

168

CULTURE AND MYTH

and remains as dull and drab as the daily Hfe of man and woman, as their
quest for food, and their concern with children and cattle.

The science of man is still conceived by laymen as a colorful display
of strange oddities and quiddities of the savage; as the antiquarian search
for origins, survivals, and evolutionary side-tracks. Why is a cannibal
so cannibalistic? Why does he avoid his mother-in-law with so many cir-
cumstantial rudenesses? Why does he kill one twin or even two, while
we worship quads and quins? Head-hunting, juicy stories about orgiastic
ritual, somewhat shocking forms of primitive marriage, obscene mutila-
tions, and mysterious masked dances are undoubtedly more amusing to
speak about or even to listen to than economics, law, and social organiza-
tion. But scientifically these latter are more relevant.

There is no doubt that in the vast museum of human achievement —
or failure — in progress there can be found strange hypertrophies, unique
distortions, and quaint deviations from the human average. These, how-
ever, are but the plums or currants in the pudding of each culture. Take
the most primitive or most exotic of human civilizations, and you will
find there still the same ordinary universally human standardized institu-
tions: the domestic hearth round which there live, work, love, and hate
each other the members of the family; the co-operative group, which
goes out to dig roots and search for edible grubs, who till the soil or
do the hunting; or, again, the congregation of the faithful who worship
a totem or a supreme being, an ancestral spirit or a fetish. For all human
beings must be nourished, and they have to reproduce; they must co-oper-
ate in technical and economic pursuits; they have to obey rules of conduct,
and these have to be enforced in one way or another. They must live,
love, and be safe, even before they dance, paint, enact strange ceremonies,
and develop sacred or profane fiction. Even in these later pursuits, how-
ever, the fears, hopes, and desires of man are not arbitrary, hence not in-
definitely or indeterminately diverse.

The search for determinism in the broadest and most fundamental
principles of human behavior is, therefore, the first and foremost sci-
entific task of anthropology conceived as basis and starting-point of other
social studies. But even in the case of very strange and outlandish cus-
toms or institutions, explanation can only mean the reduction of the
exotic and singular to elements universally human and familiar. Consider,
for instance, head-hunting, or the potlatch, running amok, or lying in
couvade. What can be meant by explaining these in a scientific analysis?
Only when we begin to perceive that at the basis of a strange, at first
incomprehensible, custom or institution there exist fundamental human
tendencies or influences of environment; when we see how that one-
strange custom depends on and is related to certain pursuits which are
universal and, therefore, immediately comprehensible — then, and then only,
can we say that we understand the custom.

CULTURE AS A DETERMINANT OF BEHAVIOR

169

The couvade, for instance, is brought nearer to our comprehension if
we consider it as a very strong expression of the physiological claims of
paternity, and of the tendency — universal, though usually less marked —
for the father to assimilate his role to that of his wife. The potlatch,
again, is but a highly magnified collective gesture of grandiloquent gen-
erosity or conspicuous waste, of which we find symptoms and manifesta-
tions in every culture, less obvious, no doubt, and less pointed, but un-
mistakably akin to the great feasts of the Northwest Indians.

Having lived from childhood in a variety of cultural settings — among
the then semi-savage Carpathian mountaineers, and among Baltic barons,
having moved from Poland to North Africa and from the Canary Islands
to north Germany and France — and later having worked among several
exotic cultures, I have more than once experienced the reduction of the ex-
otic to the familiar. When you enter a new cultural setting, the behavior,
individual or collective, of the new type of human beings seems strange,
unmotivated, irrational, in short incomprehensible. You learn the lan-
guage, you gradually adopt the strange habits and the new points of
view — and imperceptibly what was alien becomes familiar and you feel
at home in what recently had been an exotic milieu. The universally hu-
man running through all the cultures is the common measure of compre-
hension and adaptation.

With all this, there are no doubt certain queer and extremely exotic
habits which will always remain unamenable to explanation, hence quaint
and almost repugnant. Even now I cannot understand — indeed I feel a
strong repulsion at the very thought of it — how certain human beings
can enjoy playing golf, or committing suicide by hara-kiri; how some
natives are able to remain for long stretches of time standing in the rain
and looking at a few others kick a large round object (this is called among
the natives of England ''football") ; or why some South Sea natives must
collect pickled heads, etc. etc. Even in such cases, however, as eating of
human flesh, underdone beef, or plum pudding, playing golf, running
amok, and the practice of couvade, the anthropologist may attempt to
survey the psychological raw material of the pursuit, can assume a cer-
tain diversity of taste in human beings, and define the pursuit in terms
of the universally human.

But it must be clear to anyone with training in natural science or a
scientific outlook in cultural matters that the less fundamental a phenom-
enon, the more complex and concrete the factors which enter into its
make-up, the lesser will be the chance of its becoming the subject of a
general law, the result of universally valid principles. Science begins and
ends with the establishment of general principles valid for all the phenom-
ena which fall within its purview. The science of human behavior, that
is, of culture, is not an exception to this rule.

One of the greatest virtues of a scientific worker consists in knowing

170

CULTURE AND MYTH

precisely where to draw the hmits of legitimate research; it consists in
possessing the courage of a clear and emphatic ignoramus, ignorabimus.
The humanist has perhaps not yet clearly recognized the beauty of this
virtue. He has not drawn strongly enough the hne dividing art, intuition,
and empathy from scientific research. To a humanist both qualities are
necessary; they may be combined; they should never be confounded. Just
now when we are faced with the danger of a complete breakdown of the
scientific approach and of faith in science, combined with a corroding
pessimism as to the value of reason in deahng with human affairs, the
power of reason must be affirmed and its functions clearly defined. It
is not an accident that Spengler's nihilism and defeatism is founded on an
entirely anti-deterministic, hence anti-scientific, conception of culture. To
Spengler, "Culture" is an autonomous group-mind or collective genius
which expresses its free will in those outward shadowy manifestations
which, to the uninitiated and unwary, appear as the substance. The Eye
of the Illuminated Seer and Prophet alone perceives that they are but
the outer husk, and penetrates beyond to the inner meaning. This gran-
diose and mystical conception of culture as a Spirit-behind-the-facts has
fascinated millions and stultified the work of social science for a genera-
tion or two.

The jack-in-the-box conception of culture, as the self-revelation of
an immanent Genius or Deity, has been cultivated in German meta-
physics; it reaches its peak in Hegel's Historical Idealism. But its full
practical application had to wait till the arrival of the latest incarnation
of the Absolute — Herr Adolf Hitler.

The conception lends itself not only to a mood of pessimism, but also
to an aggressive, strong-fisted, and somewhat egocentric Wille zur Macht.
It has become the spiritual charter of National Socialism and Fascism, and
also (let us be fair) of Communist dictatorships-in-culture. For every
dictatorship can make good use of a doctrine which regards all civilization
not as the expression of the needs, desires, and fundamental characteris-
tics of the many, but rather as the dictated will of one. No dictatorship
can tolerate more than one standard or arbiter of ultimate wisdom and
value. It must be truth or Hitler, scientific determinism or Stalin, results
of research or Mussolini. Whether you accept doctrinaire Marxism as
the ultimate answer to all questions, or the view that one "racial" or "na-
tional genius" alone has produced the civihzation (and goes on produc-
ing it in the dictates and pronunciamentos of a Ministry of Propaganda
and Kultur) , there is no room for free, uninspired, and untrammelled re-
search into the determinism of historical process, the limits of legitimate
legislation, the ethics of oppression, and arbitrary molding of human
character and spirit.

On the negative side, therefore, the following survey of fact and
argument is directed largely against the gigantic abuses, theoretical and

CULTURE AS A DETERMINANT OF BEHAVIOR

171

practical, of the Hegelian principle that civilization is but the dictate of
an Immanent Genius or the Incarnation of the Absolute. These doctrines,
as a matter of fact, are not confined merely to propaganda ministries or
to such productions as Mein Kampf, the speeches of Mussolini, and the
decrees of the Kremlin. From quarters above all suspicion of sympathy
with dictatorship there have come quite recently pronouncements strangely
in tune with the anti-deterministic view of culture — anthropological
theories declaring that there can be no genuine science of culture.

Listen to the venerable leader and veteran of American anthropology,
Professor Franz Boas. In an apparently definite statement of his position
which is also his imprimatur on a strange book by Dr. Ruth Benedict,^
he tells us that the ultimate task of the anthropologist consists in "a deep
penetration into the genius of the culture." He follows this up by telling
us that in a survey of diverse cultures we find that "they are permeated
each by one dominating idea." But whose idea is it by which a culture
is dominated? No doubt the idea of the "genius of the culture." We are
dangerously near to the conception of Volksgeist or Volksseele, the im-
maculate tribal genius of the German people, with the Jewish grand-
mother strictly ruled out. For it is the preservation of the purity of race
and of its cultural genius on which the modern prophets of the Third
Reich are building a "pure culture."

Professor Boas's attitude tov/ards Hitlerism is exactly the same as mine,
and his own work in anthropology is classically scientific. Yet in a mo-
ment of methodological absent-mindedness he seems to forget that the
only salvation for social science is to become a real science, that is, to
part company with "tribal geniuses," "pervading spirits of culture," and
all such hypostases which are merely a short cut away from the legitimate
task — a search for general laws. Indeed he tells us that "the relations
between different aspects of culture follow the most diverse patterns and
do not lend themselves profitably to generalizations." No generalizations,
no universally valid laws, no science of culture. I have also to disagree
fundamentally with Professor Boas when he light-heartedly defines other
cultures as "abnormal": in stating that the more we know of cultural
drives, "the more we shall find that certain controls of emotion, certain
ideals of conduct, prevail that account for what seem to us as abnormal
attitudes when viewed from the standpoint of our own civilization. The
relativity of what is considered social or asocial, normal or abnormal, is
seen in a new light." ^

In my opinion this is not the right way to put anthropology on a sci-
entific basis. The apparently most heterogeneous diversities must be re-
duced to common factors, for there is a common measure of all culture
process and culture configuration. To deny this, as is done by Dr. Ruth

^Patterns of Culture, 1935.
^ Op. cit., pp. xii and xiii.

172

CULTURE AND MYTH

Benedict in her book sponsored by Professor Boas, is to condemn the
quest of scientific anthropology from the very beginning. In a comparative
examination of several cultures she affirms that they are "heterogeneous
assortments of acts and beliefs." She tells us that "they differ from one
another not only because one trait is present here and absent there, and
because another trait is found in two regions in two different forms.
They differ still more because they are orientated as wholes in different di-
rections. They are travelling along different roads in pursuit of different
ends, and these ends and these means in one society cannot be judged in
terms of those of another society, because essentially they are incommen-
surable." ^

The anthropologist, therefore, has to take his staff and walk with one
"tribal genius" to its ultimate goal and discuss with this "tribal genius"
the ends and aims of its pilgrimage. By some miraculous and prophetic in-
tuition the anthropologist has to apprehend each orientation as a specific,
incomparable reality.

The results carried out on this program of genius-hunting and em-
pathy with collective spirits are what might be expected. After long and
laborious analyses, we are told by Dr. Ruth Benedict that one culture is
Apollonian, the other Dionysiac, that one tribal genius suffers from meg-
alomania, and another from paranoia. There are cultures which are "in-
corrigibly mild," others "ruthlessly aggressive," yet others "superbly self-
satisfied." I could quote from other writers who affirm that culture can
only be understood as a form of "collective hysteria," while others speak
about "mascuhne cultures" or cultures "oriented away from the self,"
about races who are "introvert" or "extrovert," or define a culture as
"maternal in its parental aspects and feminine in its sexual aspects."

All such theories reduce anthropology to a purely subjective interpreta-
tion of each culture in terms of figurative speech, of pathological simile, of
mythological parallel, and other more or less literary or artistic ways of in-
tuition. There is no room left for the scientific analysis.

I had to enter the protest with some emphasis, because the new tendency
threatens to dominate the growing generation of anthropologists both in
the United States and in this country. Livelier journalism has already
hailed Dr. Ruth Benedict and her associates as the prophets of a new
vision in humanism. The tendency is so facile and attractive, yet so en-
tirely sterile in my opinion, that no warning could be too strong. Many
of the younger generation are drifting into mystical pronouncements,
avoiding the difficult and painstaking search for principles; they are cul-
tivating rapid cursory field-work, and developing their impressionistic
results into brilliantly dramatized film effects, such as the New Guinea
pictures of Dr. Margaret Mead in her Sex and Temperament (1935).

' Op. cit., p. 223.

CULTURE AS A DETERMINANT OF BEHAVIOR

173

There is diversity in human culture, thank heaven! Empathy into "na-
tional characteristics" or "racial genius" is an attractive artistic pursuit.

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat. . . .

But even when it comes to art, continue to read Kipling's poem and you
will find that when it is a question of a relevant pursuit such as horse-
stealing or cattle-lifting, robbery or war, then East meets West on an
equal footing. The story of Kim, and the Anglo-Indian short stories,
where East comes to grips with West and the two vie with each other
in love and hate, in fights and adventures, all demonstrate one truth — the
poet and anthropologist Kipling always divines the common measure of
humanity-at-one. The artistic creation of Kim alone shows the road to
the correct treatment of empathy and intuition, for Kim is both a West-
erner and an Indian, and in all his exploits he moves along the line of com-
mon measure.

The private, personal drive of every anthropologist is often to be
found in his love of the exotic, in his insatiable hunger for the taste of
strange customs and picturesque costumes, for the flavor of new tongues
and the new language of ideas and emotions. But from the very fact that
a European can sometimes assume the outlook and temporarily even adopt
the ways of a stone-age Melanesian or an African nomad, an Indian or a
Chinaman, proves that there is a common measure in even the intuitive
aspects of culture. And when it comes to scientific analysis, it is necessary
to lay the rule hard and fast, absolute and rigid, that to go beyond the
search for the common measure is to flounder into the non-scientific. The
artist may be there too, in the make-up of a field-worker, or of an anthro-
pological theorist, but he must not confuse his aesthetic task with his sci-
entific problems.

On the positive side, therefore, the arguments which follow are an at-
tempt to establish that there can be a genuine science of culture; that gen-
eral principles and universally valid concepts are not only necessary, but
indispensable; and that the analysis of human cultures can be carried out
in the same spirit — both empirical and strictly conforming to logic —
— which is the only way of dealing with problems of physics, biology, and
anthropology as well.

"Culture as a determinant of human behavior" — I read this title as an
injunction to prove that there exists a science of human behavior, which
is the science of culture. Culture, in fact, is nothing but the organized
behavior of man. Man differs from the animals in that he has to rely on
an artificially fashioned environment: on implements, weapons, dwellings,
and man-made means of transport. To produce and to manage this body
of artifacts and commodities, he requires knowledge and technique. He

J 74 CULTURE AND MYTH

depends on the help of his fellow-beings. This means that he has to live
in organized, well-ordered communities. Of all the animals he alone merits
the tripartite title of homo faber, zoom politikon, homo sapiens.

All this artificial equipment of man, material, spiritual, and social, we
call technically culture. It is a large-scale molding matrix; a gigantic
conditioning apparatus. In each generation it produces its type of individ-
ual. In each generation it is in turn reshaped by its carriers.

Is this big entity itself subject to laws of a scientific character? I for
one have no hestitation in answering this question in the affirmative. Cul-
ture is a determinant of human behavior, and culture as a dynamic reaUty
is also subject to determinism. There exist scientific laws of culture.

The possibility of a really scientific approach to humanism and anthro-
pology is still contested. It is not superfluous, therefore, to reaffirm the
existence of determinism in the study of human culture.

In my opinion the principal ailment of all humanism is the disjunction
of empirical approach from theory, of methods of observation from specu-
lative doctrine. It will be best, therefore, first to turn to the testimony
of cultural fact itself. It is easiest to grasp the essence of a phenomenon
in contemplating its manifestations through a wide range of variation. Let
us then make a rapid flight over the globe and obtain bird's-eye views of
some highly divergent types of human culture.

The culture of a nomad tribe

Let us descend first on the arid and dusty steppes of central East Africa
inhabited by the Masai, the famous fierce warriors of the region. On
approaching the native encampment we are met by a group of men, tall,
dignified, armed with iron spears and daggers. Their women, svelte and
elegant, startle the newcomer with the glitter and rattle of the wrought-
iron ornaments encircling their necks, wrists, and ankles. Both sexes still
wear the native robes of soft goat- or sheepskin. Not a shred of calico nor
European trinket mars the archaic vision of men and women of Africa
as they lead us into the ring of low brown huts, made of thatch, plastered
with cow-dung, and enclosed with a stout fence of prickly shrub.

Conservative in his material culture, the Masai still clings also to his
old tribal ways. He still remains at heart a gentleman robber, herdsman,
cattle-lifter, and warrior. When, after years of drought, starvation
threatens the Masai among their pestilence-stricken herds, how can they
help using force, in which they have been trained through generations,
against their fat and flabby neighbors grown weak in their wealth and
security? Their whole social organization — age-grades, mutilations and
tests of endurance, and military drill — is tuned up to the development
of warlike virtues. The Masai warrior — that is, every man between
puberty and marriage — Hves in a special camp, devoting all his time to
the aristocratic arts of doing nothing and preparing for war. He is

CULTURE AS A DETERMINANT OF BEHAVIOR

175

governed by a democratic regime in which an elected captain administers
law and leads the men into battle.

Agriculture they despise, vegetables being food fit only for women.
As a Masai warrior put it to me in a convincing argument: "The earth
is our Mother. She gives us all the milk we need, and feeds our cattle.
It is wrong to cut or scratch her body" — a confirmation of the psycho-
analyst's conception of Mother-Earth, by one who had not studied the
works of Professor Freud yet!

As to sex morals, they leave entire freedom to immature girls, who
consort with the warriors in their camp. At puberty every woman has to
undergo a drastic operation, clitoridectomy, which constitutes their
marriage rite.

The whole tribe owe allegiance to the OlHoibon, the hereditary rain
magician and prophet. He controls them through his gift of divination
and his power of producing magical fertility of land and of women.

How can we press this strange, exotic material, as rich and varied and
elusive as life itself, into a scientific scheme? The temptation to stop
at artistic impressionism is great. We might well feel that it would be
best to paint the war-like Masai in exaggerated colors in order to bring
out the martial, boisterous, licentious "genius" of this culture.

Indeed, this type of procedure is the latest fashion in anthropology.
Since, however, we are in search of a scientific, that is, deterministic
approach, let us inquire into what are the main interests of the natives, the
pivotal points of their tribal life. We see at once that their interests center
around food, sex, defense, and aggression. Divination and prophecy, and
their pohtical influence, are related to their military adventures and the
vicissitudes of climate. The age-grades are an occupational organization
correlated with their military life; they form an educational system in
which tribal knowledge is imparted, discipline and endurance inculcated.

Thus culture, as we find it among the Masai, is an apparatus for the
satisfaction of the elementary needs of the human organism. But under
conditions of culture these needs are satisfied by roundabout methods.
The Masai cannot turn to nature directly in order to nourish himself.
In the long development of his tribal culture, the institution of pastoral-
ism has come into being. The tending, breeding, exchange, and ownership
of cattle, incidentally also the need of its defense and protection, impose
derived or secondary imperatives on the life of the Masai: the cattle
kraal, military camps, seasonal migrations, and fertiUty magic are the
outcome and correlates of pastoralism.

The continuity of the race equally does not work by physiological
determination alone. Sexual appetite and personal attraction, the urge to
mate, and the desire for children are reformulated culturally. Each phase
of the biological process — maturation, puberty, courtship, marriage, and
parenthood — is correlated with the mode of life and the arrangements of

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domesticity and bachelors' camp; and the whole is safeguarded by the
military organization. The vast phenomenon of kinship, including the
family, marriage, clanship, and the laws of descent, is the cultural counter-
part of the physiological process of reproduction.

The needs of man and the aspects of ctdture

Let us see what the conditions are in a neighboring tribe. Not far from
the Masai steppes, on the slopes of the Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain
in Africa, live the Chagga, an agricultural, sedentary people. The Chagga,
though he also keeps and appreciates cattle, is mainly a tiller of the soil.
Yams and pumpkins, peas and millet thrive well on the fertile green fields
of the Kilimanjaro. The staple food, however, is the banana. As the
Masai culture has been labeled "cattle-complex," so the Chagga culture
could certainly be defined as a banana obsession. The Chagga lives on
bananas; he lives among bananas — every homestead must be surrounded
by its banana grove; and when he is dead he is buried amid bananas.

In contrast to the nomadic Masai, the Chagga have a highly developed
body of land laws. Their large-scale system of irrigation is a feat of
engineering unparalleled anywhere in native Africa south of the Sahara.
Again, unlike the democratic Masai, the Chagga have a well-developed
chieftainship. In each district the chief is the supreme judge, the source
of law, the military leader, and the high priest of tribal ancestor-worship.
The centralized power of the Chagga, however, is not based on aggressive
militarism. They have a highly developed system of defense, with exten-
sive, well-guarded earthworks along the frontiers, and enormous subter-
ranean chambers where men, women, and cattle are able to take refuge
during a Masai raid.

The Chagga differ from their neighbors, the Masai: they practice
agriculture, live in fixed settlements, have a developed system of land
tenure; and their religion consists mainly in ancestor- worship. They
resemble the Masai in that they practice female circumcision, they have
developed age-grades, and they believe in magic by divination. What is
the best way of establishing a common measure for the scientific compari-
son of differences and also of similarities?

Clearly, again, we must compare their institutions — that is, the organ-
ized systems of activities, each correlated with a fundamental need. In
both tribes we find that to nutrition there corresponds the economic
system, dominated among the Chagga by agriculture, among the Masai
by cattle-breeding. In both cultures we should have to analyze the
economic system by means of such universally valid concepts as the
organization of production, the methods of distribution, and the manner
in which consumption integrates certain groups of people. Among both
we should have to consider the physiological process of reproduction as it
is organized into the domestic institutions. The physiological growth of

CULTURE AS A DETERMINANT OF BEHAVIOR

177

the individual is in both cases institutionahzed into the system of age-
grades. PoHtical organization comes into being in the satisfaction of the
need for safety in the case of the Chagga; in the case of the Masai the
mihtary organization and the poHtical system are the outcome of a periodic
need for predatory economics. In both tribes there are, again, correspond-
ing organizations for the maintenance of internal law and order. The
political system, in its military and legal aspects alike, imposes its own
discipline, morale, ideals, and economic requirements.

The transmission of the cultural heritage from one generation to
another brings into being the two educational systems of the Chagga and
Masai. In both tribes the earlier stages of training are bound up with
domestic life, while later on the initiations into age-grades carry on the
education in tribal custom and morality.

From the comparison of the two cultures we reach one of our pivotal
generalizations. Every culture must be analyzed into the following
aspects: economics, politics, the mechanism of law and custom, education,
magic and religion, recreation, traditional knowledge, technology, and
art. And all human cultures can be compared under the headings of this
scheme.

Far from the chaotic, indeterministic defeatism which overwhelms the
amateur, and apparently even some professional anthropologists, this
approach gives us a solid scientific foundation.

Incidentally, we also arrive at another conclusion. Anthropology, the
science of culture, must study the same subjects as those which confront
the student of contemporary civilization, or of any other period in human
history. It must approach primitive culture from the angle of politics and
economics, theory of religion, and jurisprudence. And here anthropology
may claim a special position among the other sciences of human society
and culture.

Its range is the widest; it relies entirely on direct observation, for its
sources are in the student's own field. It is perhaps the only social science
which can easily remain detached from political bias, nationalist prejudice,
sentiment, or doctrinaire zeal. If this social science fails to develop an
entirely dispassionate study of its material, there is not much hope for the
other branches of humanism. Hence, in vindicating the scientific char-
acter of anthropology we are working at the very foundations of social
science. Anthropology has the privilege and the duty of acting as an
organizing agency in the comparative study of cultures.

Adaptation to environment and diseases of culture

In order to appreciate the influence of environment upon culture, let us
leave tropical Africa and move into the desert of snow, ice, and rock
inhabited by the Eskimos. Their winter house, made of stone or of snow,
has been described as a marvel of engineering, a perfect adaptation to

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climate and to the available material. It certainly is an example of
thoroughgoing correlation between a material object and the necessities
of life. Combining warmth, space, and ventilation, it provides during the
long winter night comfortable places in which to lie and listen to the
long tales of folklore, or carry on technical activities. The technological
excellence of these natives is also shown in the construction of their
sledges and their weapons, of their canoes, and of their traps.

In comparison with this, some aspects of their culture seem under-
developed. The Eskimos have been described as devoid of any political
system or of legal institutions. They have been often accused of extreme
pacifism in that they do not slaughter each other in organized fighting.
Yet this is perhaps not quite correct. For though they have no political
chieftainship, they recognize the authority of the Shaman. He also acts
in a roundabout way as an important juridical agency. They have their
code of law, consisting of many taboos, the breach of which brings down
evil not only on the wrongdoer but on the whole community. Tribal
calamity can be averted only by public confession. After that the Shaman
can magically re-establish tribal prosperity. Thus, as the Masai have antici-
pated psychoanalysis, so the Eskimos are the forerunners of the Oxford
Group movement.

On the other hand, toward sex they have the same attitude as the
Masai. They have also a somewhat similar type of political system, always
with the exception that the one are extremely warlike, and the others
have never heard of fighting.

Our approach to a scientific study of culture, through the various
aspects which correspond to the fundamental and derived needs of man,
does not break down even here, when we apply it to such a one-sided, in
many ways stunted, and in other ways hypertrophied, culture as that
of the Esk imos. For the Eskimos eat and reproduce, maintain themselves
secure against weather and animals, have developed means of movement
in space, and they also regulate the bodily development of the individual.
Their culture consists, hke all others, of the cardinal aspects: economics,
education, law, poUtics, magic and religion, knowledge, crafts, art, and
also recreation.

What about war? Some divisions of the Eskimos have a minimum of
military organization. Others are completely ignorant of fighting. Since
the polar and central Eskimos have no neighbors, nor yet any cause for
internal quarrels and dissensions, they cannot have military institutions.
This fact confirms our conception of the instrumental nature of organ-
ized activities. Where, as in their westernmost offshoots, the Eskimos are
in contact with warlike Indian tribes, they have developed the organiza-
tion, the virtues, and the apparatus of war.

In the study of war, as of any other aspect of culture, the strict
application of scientific determinism is necessary. This is achieved by

CULTURE AS A DETERMINANT OF BEHAVIOR

179

clear definitions, empirical concepts, and inductive generalization. All the
wrangles as to the innate pacifism or aggressiveness of primitive man are
based on the use of words without definition. To label all brawling,
squabbling, dealing out of black eye or broken jaw, war, as is frequently
done, leads simply to confusion. One author tells us then that primitive
man is a natural pacifist. Another has recently described war as indispen-
sable for the survival of the fittest. Yet another maintains that war is
the main creative, beneficent, and constructive factor in the history of
mankind. But war can only be defined as the use of organized force
between two politically independent units, in the pursuit of a tribal
policy. War in this sense enters fairly late into the development of human
societies.

Only with the formation of independent political units, where military
force is maintained as a means of tribal policy, does war contribute
through the historical fact of conquest to the building up of cultures
and the establishment of states. In my opinion, we have just left this
stage of human history behind, and modern warfare has become nothing
but an unmitigated disease of civilization.

I have made this brief digression on warfare because it illustrates one
side of the scientific or functional method in cultural analysis. This method
is often accused of overemphasizing the perfect integration of all factors
within the working whole of culture. This is a misrepresentation. The
functional method only insists on the fact that all the elements of culture
are related to each other; they are not idle survivals or disconnected traits,
but they function — that is, they are at work. It does not pronounce any
appreciation or moral comment as to whether this work is good or evil,
well or badly adjusted. As in the case of some primitive types of warfare,
and certainly of its most recent developments, the instrumental analysis
of culture reveals more cogently than dissection into traits the occurrence
of catastrophic maladjustments of human society.

As you have noticed just now, and felt, perhaps, throughout the argu-
ment of this lecture, there has been a background of critical indictment
running right through. I do not want to waste your time with controversy
and polemics. At the same time, I do not want you to feel that we are
running in open doors in insisting on an objective, sober, empirical, and
non-mystical treatment of culture. We are engaged now in laying down
the foundations for a sound method in social science. When these are
clearly and simply stated, they have a knack of appearing mere truisms.
Science in the long run is nothing but common sense and experience built
up on a systematic basis, refined and clarified to the utmost limits of
conceptual lucidity. So, briefly: I have been insisting that anthropological
theory must be objective, which means aboveboard, and presented in a
manner amenable to verification. Why? Because some of the leaders of
contemporary anthropology still maintain that there is a subjective factor

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in all humanistic observation. To quote an eminent scholar: "All historical
definitions are in their very essence subjective."

I have been driving in the existence of a measure common to all com-
parative work in anthropology — the existence, that is, of a general scheme
of human culture, universally vaHd. Why? Because it has been stated in
so many words that "no common measure of cultural phenomena can
be found," and that "the laws of cultural process are vague, insipid and
useless."

I have again and again indicated that it is illegitimate to cover our
inability to deal with certain facts by such mystic labels as the "genius
of culture," or to describe this "genius" as Apollonian, Dionysiac, megalo-
maniac, or hysterical. "Why? Because all these atrocities have been recently
committed. Culture has been described as the "collective hysteria" of
society. We have had recently a whole rainbow of colorful tags and
epithets tied to the neck of each individual culture.

I have insisted that analysis must not be arbitrary; that the dissection
of a culture, even as that of a corpse, must obey the laws of its anatomy,
and not become mere butchery, a lifting out of "traits" and the lumping
of them into haphazard "trait complexes." Why? Because the most
powerful school in anthropology still follows the precepts of Graebner,
who would have us isolate "traits" and define them by characteristics not
founded in the nature of the object or the material. One of the leading
American anthropologists tells us that an agglomeration of such traits
into a complex "is historically most convincing when the traits are not
related to one another." To regard culture as a jumble of disconnected
and unrelated details may lead to amusing reconstructions but of doubtful
value. In the process, however, it robs our whole concept of culture of
all life and significance.

The family as the cornerstone of social structure

But let us leave aside this controversial mood. To make our point clear,
let us concentrate on an object — the object of objects, in a way — the
material embodiment of the premier institution of mankind, the family.
We shall choose our example from yet another ethnographic area and
contemplate a pile dwelling in Melanesia.

In sharp contrast to the arid steppes of central Africa and the Arctic
desert of snow, we are surrounded here by a wilderness of water, coral
reef, and swamp. The main symptom of man's adaptation to his sur-
roundings is a remarkable achievement of primitive architecture, the
house on piles. It stands firmly on its foundations of stout tree-trunks
driven deep into the muddy bottom of the lagoon. Constructed of strong
material cunningly fitted and lashed together, it resists the combined
attacks of wind, waves, and weather.

CULTURE AS A DETERMINANT OF BEHAVIOR

181

To the lagoon dweller such a house is a fortress where he can take
refuge and which he can defend. It is a watch-tower from which he can
see the approach of suspicious strangers. It is also conveniently near to
the coast which he frequently has to visit in order to tend his gardens.
The structure of the house is thus determined by the inter-tribal relations
of the people, their economic pursuits, by climate and natural environ-
ment.

It can thus be studied only within its natural setting. But after man
has invented, constructed, and improved his dwelling, and made it into
a fortress, an economic asset, and a comfortable home, the house then
dominates his whole mode of life. The outer shell of his domesticity in-
fluences the social structure of family and kinship.

Indeed, it seems that the higher the cultural development, the more
ruthless and brutal becomes the tyranny of machine over man. Are we
not at present hopelessly enslaved by our hypertrophied prosperity which
we have not yet learned to manage; by our rapid means of communication
which allow us to speed, but too often to speed but aimlessly? And last,
not least, and worst of all, by our excessive efficiency in the means of
collective destruction? Once more a humanist may be allowed to reflect
on the fact that the overdevelopment of mechanical science and its
applications have completely outgrown the progress of our knowledge of
how to adjust our efficiency to really human aims and needs.

Since in my opinion anthropology should begin at home, let me give
you an anthropological impression of modern culture and recount a
personal experience in which I very poignantly became aware of the power
of things over man.

No experience in my exotic wanderings among the Trobrianders and
the Chagga, among the Masai and the Pueblo, has ever matched the shock
I received in my first contact with American civilization on my first visit
to New York, when I arrived there ten years ago on a fine spring evening,
and saw the city in its strangeness and exotic beauty. The enormous yet
elegant monsters blinking at me through their thousand starry eyes,
breathing white steam, giants which crowded in fantastic clusters over
the smooth waters of the river, stood before me: the living, dominating
realities of this new culture. During my first few days in New York I
could not shake off the feeling that the strange "genius" of this most
modern civilization had become incarnate in the skyscraper, the subway,
and the ferry boat. Large insects in the shape of automobiles crept along
the gutter called street or avenue, subordinate but important. Finally, as
a fairly insignificant and secondary by-product of the enormous mechani-
cal reality, there appeared the microscopic bacteria called Man, sneaking
in and out of subway, skyscraper, or automobile, performing some useful
service to their masters, but otherwise rather insignificant. Modern civiH-

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zation is a gigantic hypertrophy of material objects, and contemporary
man will still have to fight his battle in order to reassert his dominance
over the Thing.

But what interests us at present is to find the existence of a common
measure between the residential part of the skyscraper and snowhouse, pile-
dweUing and cow-dung hut.

In the material used, in structure, in architecture, in all, that is, which
we can call the form of the object, there is hardly one trait in common.
But look at the dweHing as a part of an institution. It appears at once
that the principles on which each dwelling is integrated into organized
human life and becomes the shell of this Kfe are the same throughout
humanity. In the penthouse on top of the skyscraper, in the snow igloo,
in the engadji of cow dung, in the niyumba of thatch, we find the same
domestic unit, the family, consisting of father, mother, and children.

Is the resemblance only superficial? No. Functionally it is not merely
a resemblance, but an identity. The group is united by the same task, the
essential business of reproducing the race. A universal type of legal
charter gives juridical validity to the group. The act of marriage bestows
legitimacy on the children, grants the consorts mutual privileges and
duties, defines the domestic work of husband and wife; above all, it im-
poses on them the duty of looking conjointly after the children. Human
parents, unlike animals, are not allowed merely to throw up fresh
organisms, but they have to introduce fully fledged citizens into the
community.

Another fundamental difference between man and the animals is that
under civilization parenthood develops into the wider network of relations
which we anthropologists call the system of kinship. Here at once a
universal generalization can be made. In every human society both parents
share in procreation, in tending and training the children, but only one line
of descent is legally relevant. Kinship is counted either in the direct mother
line or father line. And the anthropologist is also able to state the reason
why. Any ambiguity, any confusion in the tracing of filiation inevitably
leads to disaster and chaos in laws of inheritance and of succession. Even
as it is, with one line of descent, primogeniture, or with the law of
borough-English, ultimogeniture, most legal difficulties in primitive and
developed communities are due to conflicts in the law of inheritance or
succession.

Another universal law of kinship is that, under unilateral descent and
the classificatory system of kinship status, parenthood becomes extended
into clan relationship. The classificatory use of kinship terms, again, a
curious hnguistic phenomenon which seems to saddle every individual in
primitive culture with a whole bunch of fathers and mothers, of aunts,
uncles, sisters, and, alas, even mothers-in-law, is universal. To explain it
whole libraries have been written about the existence of primitive prom-

CULTURE AS A DETERMINANT OF BEHAVIOR

183

iscuity, group marriage, and the gradual development of monogamy out
of complete sexual and parental communism. All this is, in plain American,
bunkum! Had the classificatory system been discovered by one who spoke
the native language well, had it been studied scientifically, a very simple
explanation would have been discovered.

The discovery of the actual live function of classificatory terms was
made in Melanesia. I was able there to study not the product, that is, the
ready-made so-called classificatory system of nomenclature, but the proc-
ess of extension as it actually occurred in the life of the individual. I
found that the piecemeal extension of linguistic usage runs parallel with
the piecemeal transference of the child-to-parent attitude. The terms, thus
gradually extended, do not in fact lump clansmen and clanswomen into
groups of fathers, mothers, wives and husbands, siblings and children. The
idea of group parenthood or group marriage appears preposterous to the
primitive — he simply would laugh at the volumes of anthropological
speculation on primitive promiscuity. It is the unadulterated product of
the academic mind. In real native life terminological extensions function
as quasi-legal metaphors. They exercise the binding force on the widening
circle of kindred, a force which diminishes as the genealogical distance
grows. There is an analogy between this phenomenon and the use of words
in a spell, both being instances of the creative metaphor of the magical
word.

In the same way, had the great variety of the forms of pre-nuptial
relations and of relaxations of the matrimonial ties been studied, it would
have been recognized that they cannot be remnants of pristine promis-
cuity because they function as experimental methods of courtship.

Had I more time, I should discuss with you a number of important laws
in the theory of kinship: the principle of legitimacy; the determinism
in mother-right and father-right; the correlation of clanship and extended
kinship with their function in primitive communities; the function which
might be roughly described as that of social insurance. We should see
that the wider kinship groups disappear because in our more highly dif-
ferentiated communities the state, charity organizations, friendly societies,
and public services take over the functions of kinship. The theory of
kinship here placed before you explains the phenomena of primitive life
not as survivals or diffusions in terms of this or that recondite hypothesis
or fantasy but in terms of observable fact and relations between facts.

[That no scientific theory will be able to explain certain queer customs
of kinship and domesticity may be granted. Why do some savages impose
strict taboos and avoidances between a man or a woman and the mother-
in-law? Apart from the inherent wisdom of such a rule, there is no ex-
planation forthcoming. Why do some communities kill one of a pair of
twins; others both; and yet others treat them with special consideration?
I doubt whether an answer will ever be given. Why do some people prac-

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tice clitoridectomy and others infibulation? Why do we find in one
culture circumcision, and in another subincision? It is difficult to answer.
Speaking of twins, I am certain that many a savage would be most cer-
tainly shocked by, and would develop all sorts of hypotheses in order to
explain, the interest which has been taken recently by the Western world
in quadruplets and quintuplets.]"'

The quest for food and primitive economics

We have found throughout our survey that the food quest and other
economic activities leave a deep imprint on the whole culture. This truism,
however, must be supplemented by a somewhat fuller appreciation of the
place of economics in primitive culture. Let us once more concentrate on
a concrete case, the system of agriculture of the Trobriand Islanders in
Melanesia. Their whole tribal life is dominated by agriculture. During
the season of hard work, men and women practically live in the gardens.
Then, while the plants sprout and grow, the women still have to do
weeding. The men, on the other hand, devote themselves to other things,
fishing and trapping, industries, canoe-building, and trading expeditions.
One man only, the Garden Magician, still remains hard at work. He has
been in fact from the beginning an organizer of work, directing the
allotment of land, and, while ostensibly he was carrying on his rites, in
reality he acted as tribal entrepreneur. Even when it comes to the harvest
he still has to bless the crops and then perform over the stored produce
a type of magic which, by reducing the appetite of the people, makes
food last longer.

But agriculture as an economic activity does not end with the harvest.
The distribution of the products is an important business which penetrates
into all the aspects of tribal life. Tribute has to be given to the chief, and
on this tribute his political power is largely based. A quota of food has
to be put aside for tribal ceremonies, and this finances largely their public
and religious activities. Finally, the third stage of the economic process,
consumption, presents many interesting aspects in this tribe, as everywhere
else. For consumption means not merely eating, but also handling, display,
ritual food offerings, and last but not least, sheer waste. For in the
Trobriands the passion for accumulated food is so great that people prefer
to keep their yams till they rot in the storehouses rather than to see the
latter empty.

We see, then, that agriculture must be studied within the context of the
whole economic system. For the vegetables are exchanged for fish; they
are used in the financing of enterprise and for feeding the craftsmen, for
the capitahzation of industries. This is especially interesting in the study
of the large native jewelry, or, more correctly, tokens of wealth, which

* This paragraph appeared in the Harvard address, but not in Human A£Fairs.

CULTURE AS A DETERMINANT OF BEHAVIOR

185

play a considerable part in the political system and which are also cere-
monially exchanged in the course of large inter-tribal expeditions, which
are practiced throughout this region. Could we apply the same detailed
study to Masai or to Chagga economics, or those of the Eskimos or Plains
Indians, we would see that they also must be considered under the three
headings of production, distribution, and consumption.

In production we would find everywhere the question of the social
and cultural forces by which labor is organized. We would have to
inquire how productive labor is maintained; in other words, whether
there are beginnings of capital and even of interest. Under the heading
of distribution, we would not merely have to consider the complicated
institutions of African marketing, peddling, and hawking, as well as more
or less extensive forms of inter-tribal trade. We would also have to discuss
the chief's tribute.

I think that throughout the world we would find that the relations
between economics and politics are of the same type. The chief, every-
where, acts as a tribal banker, collecting food, storing it, and protecting
it, and then using it for the benefit of the whole community. His func-
tions are the prototype of the public finance system and the organization
of state treasuries of today. Deprive the chief of his privileges and financial
benefits, and who suffers most but the whole tribe? At the same time,
it would be interesting to see how sometimes, especially in African
monarchies, the chief's political power was abused for selfish and extor-
tionate financial policy; and equally interesting to see what limits there
were to such malpractices. In the few cases where I was able to investigate
into this matter in central East Africa, I found that the subjects could,
and did, rebel, or else used sorcery, of which the monarch was usually very
much afraid.

As regards consumption, we should find that the common eating of
food, its preparation and the joint domestic economy, is one of the
strongest ties of family life. Even more interesting would it be to study
conspicuous waste under primitive conditions. It is possible to show that
such institutions as the Northwest Indian potlatch and the large displays
and redistributions of food practiced all over Oceania are not merely a
curiosity. The passion for wealth engenders thrift and stimulates produc-
tion. The power of wealth as a guarantee of legal contracts or as public
payment for services forms one of the earliest binding forces in which
economic value influences and enhances social organization and solidarity.
The delight which the Trobriander feels in seeing his yams rot corresponds
to an important economic attitude; we have here a standardized sentiment
which crystallized around accumulation and permanence of foodstuffs,
the sentiment which sets economic security above immediate satisfaction.

The anthropologist is often asked by elderly ladies or young girls: "Is
primitive man an individuahst or communist? I want to know that,

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CULTURE AND MYTH

because I want to know whether human nature is communistic or not."
I could refer to one or two instances where a scholar of high repute has
played into the hands of the lady questioner, old or young. As a matter
of fact, the anthropologist can give an opinion, but only as to the work-
ings of the institution of property and not as to that vague entity, human
nature. Communism as public control of private property has always
existed and must be present in every culture, simple and developed. Com-
munism as absence of individual property does not exist under primitive
conditions.

Take the prototype of all wealth, value, and property: soil used for
agriculture. Here it is very easy to juggle with words, for on the surface
a pastoral, nomadic people are communistic in land. Yet an intelhgent
analysis shows that in the effective use of land they are not more com-
munistic than the New Yorkers who use their public thoroughfares
jointly. The economics of cattle, which is the effective way in which land
is used, is always subject to individual ownership. Tillers of the soil who
use the land directly invariably appropriate the soil, at least for the period
of tilling. A tribe in central Africa, the Bemba, among whom I was able
to do some work on this subject, have an unlimited supply of land. The
title is vested in the chief. It is controlled by the local headman, and
every individual is allowed as much as he likes. But once the boundaries
are marked, there is no trespassing, no common use. There is full and
exclusive individual appropriation for the period of from three to five
years while cultivation goes on. Even then quarrels about land are more
frequent than about women.

The Trobrianders have an extremely complicated system of land tenure,
the gist of which is that the titular owner very seldom uses his own
property, but receives an adequate and conveniently situated portion of
land, for which he pays a nominal rent. Among the Chagga, ownership is
individual, but if a man owns more than he can actually cultivate, the
community disposes of the surplus to someone who is in need of soil.

Complete communism of land actually under cultivation is never found
in any primitive society. Production is a process in which man invests
labor and intelligent foresight, and at least as much of his wealth as is
necessary for planting and for keeping himself alive while he works. No
free human being will do it permanently without some legal guarantee,
safeguarding for him the results of his efforts. The guarantee given to
each free individual that the results of his efforts will be his to use
or to give, is tantamount to individual ownership. Where there are slaves,
pawns, or serfs, there may be a class of people who work without any
claims to the fruits of their labor. But such communism turns men into
slaves, serfs, or pawns. May this not be true of all forms of communism?

Another interesting lesson which we can learn from an anthropological
survey is in the analysis of profit. We are often told that with the aboli-

CULTURE AS A DETERMINANT OF BEHAVIOR

187

tion of private profit all evils, such as war, sexual jealousy, poverty, and
even drunkenness, will disappear. There is no doubt at all that profit
lends itself to abuse through dishonest financial manipulation and the
running, in the interest of shareholders, of enterprises which ought to
be directed to public service. It must be controlled by public agencies in
primitive as well as in civilized communities. But is it necessary to change
the whole social order, nationalize all wealth and means of production, in
order to reach the desired end? To me the Marxian doctrine of profit
entails a complete misconception of the relationship between the economic
factor and other motives and drives in human society. The pocket is not
the only channel by which wealth can be maldistributed and abuses
canalized. Vanity, doctrinaire zeal, incompetence, and personal ambition
cause as much havoc as does greed. The men who control production —
in Africa or Europe, in Melanesia or America — do not and cannot fill
their pockets or bellies with gold. Where they can and do harm is in
mishandling and misusing the production and distribution of wealth. In
order to prevent that, public control by disinterested agencies is necessary.
And here it is obviously better to have a system in which control of
wealth, legislation, and the executive use of power are not concentrated
in the same hands, but vested in separate agencies. The totalitarian state
and the African autocracy are not models of sound economic systems.
The real advance lies in the gradual piecemeal reform, involving all the
parts of the economic and political organism. An integral revolution
destroys, but it does not create. The concentration of all controls in the
same hands means the aboUtion of all control.

Savage exoticisms and scientific anthropology

So far we have concentrated on prosaic, ordinary, non-savage aspects.
[Many of you who have come to see a notorious anthropologist perform
on the platform have, no doubt, drawn up a hopeful list of anticipations:
cannibalism, couvade, avoidance of the mother-in-law, and the pious
custom of killing and eating aged and decrepit parents, head-hunting and
infanticide, sorcery, trial by ordeal, human sacrifice, taboos, totems, and
all the other tricks of trade of the entertaining anthropologist.]* It all
started with Herodotus, who amused us with talks about lotus-eaters and
man-eaters, about queer sexual habits and gastronomic perversions.

[I have been drab and sober on purpose.]"" If anthropology is to
become the comparative science of cultures, it is high time it stepped out
of its herodotage and anecdotage. It must turn to the fundamentals of
human culture, in simple and complex, primitive and highly developed
forms alike. It must study primitive economics and political systems, the

* The material in brackets appeared in the Harvard address, but not in Human
Affairs.

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CULTURE AND MYTH

theory of kinship and social organization, early jurisprudence, and systems
of education. It must study all of these across the widest comparative
range of human experience.

Not that we could not profitably dwell on some of the primitive eccen-
tricities of man. Cannibalism as a system of foreign policy is a sound way
of solving international complications: it is a rapid and effective manner
of assimilating racial and national minorities. To run away from or to turn
your back on your mother-in-law, many of us feel, would be an amiable
and highly rational way of securing domestic happiness. The eating up
of decrepit parents is a good method of old-age insurance, while expressing
fully an appreciation of one's progenitors.

Seriously, however, in most of these queer and sordid customs there is
a core of rational and practical principle, and also a quota of belief or
superstition which on balance is not always completely foreign to us.
Cannibalism is as repulsive to us as the eating of underdone beef or
mutton is to the sentimental vegetarian, or the swallowing of live oysters
would be to a Jain priest. But after all, meat is meat, and where there is a
scarcity of it a strong nervous system cannot be too finicky or allow
imagination to run away with it. But cannibalism also involves the
fundamental belief that by eating your slain enemy you acquire his per-
sonal qualities or his spiritual virtues. And here just stop to think for a
moment. Is this belief of a mystical or spiritual union by ingestion so
absolutely alien to us? Can you not think of very highly differentiated
and spiritual religions where mystic union is achieved by a sacrament in
which the spiritual substance is taken by mouth? Between the lowest
and crudest customs and the highest spiritual act there may be an unex-
pected common measure, so that charity may finish abroad when knowl-
edge begins at home. By placing thus each of these strange and queer
customs within its proper psychological and cultural setting, we can
bring it near to us, we can perceive in it the universally human substra-
tum. In other words, we have to carry out our analysis of primitive belief
or superstition by means of universally valid concepts and thus make it
amenable to scientific treatment.

There is no doubt that most "queernesses" and exoticisms of savagery
reside in what we call "superstition" in others and "belief" in ourselves.
Magic is obviously further from our comprehension even than primitive
religion. Those acquainted with ethnological literature know how much
attention has been devoted to magic. It is usually regarded as a primitive
form of mental aberration and as a typical symptom of savagery. Tylor ,
defined magic as a grossly distorted type of animistic philosophy. Frazer's j
theory presents magic as a perverted form of primitive pseudo science, t
Professor Freud again sees in magic a typical delusion of paranoia and
ascribes it to primitive man's belief in the omnipotence of thought.

CULTURE AS A DETERMINANT OF BEHAVIOR

189

The function of magic

In truth magic is nothing of the sort. Here again it might be best to
follow a magical act and see what we can learn from it. I was sitting in a
lagoon village built on piles when, at an early stage of my Melanesian
field work, I had my first experience of a severe monsoon hurricane. After
the first few strong blasts a general commotion arose: people could be
seen running about and screaming, some were trying to make fast the
canoes, others to put away some of their chattels. They were all in panic.
The onslaught of the wind was terrific, and I had to muster all my nervous
energy to keep up the white man's burden of dignified impassivity.

And then I received my first intimation of the character, the power, and
the influence of Melanesian magic. When the wind was at its worst a loud
chant suddenly arose from one of the platforms. The hereditary wind
magician of the community was about to calm down the storm in order to
prevent any destruction which it might wreak. The words of the spell
were simple: he ordered the wind to abate, to avaunt, to lie still. He
addressed the wind from the mountain, the wind from the lagoon, the
wind from the rainy clouds, and ordered them to lie down and lie still.
He asserted that no harm could be done to the village.

What was the effect of his imprecations on the wind does not matter
to us skeptics, but the effect of his voice on the human beings was truly
magical. His voice rose like a mighty wall of safety between the frightened
human beings and the unchained forces of nature. It was evident that
the villagers now felt safe. They became more and more calm and reas-
sured as the magician proceeded with his long spell. They behaved quite
differently after the magic had been chanted. And immediately after he
had finished his spell the magician took the practical situation in hand: he
gave orders what to do, orders which were immediately obeyed in a
disciplined, organized manner.

I realized then and there what the real function of magic is. On the
psychological side it leads to a mental integration, to that optimism and
confidence in the face of danger which has won to man many a battle
with nature or with his human foes. Socially, magic, by giving leadership
to one man, establishes organization at a time when organized and effec-
tive action is of supreme importance.

We have seen exactly the same function of magic in Trobriand agri-
culture. There also the magician acts as organizer to the community,
while to each individual he gives confidence, spurring him to greater
effort. And here I would immediately like to add a rider. If we were
to examine either the wind magic or the agricultural magic point by
point, we should come to one extremely important conclusion. The
activity of the magician never encroaches on the technique or subject
matter of practical work. In agriculture the Trobriand magician bestows

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CULTURE AND MYTH

additional fertility on the soil, forestalls pests and blights, the ravages
of bush pigs and wallabies, destruction by drought and other unman-
ageable causes. He never does magic instead of cutting down the shrub
or fertihzing the soil with ashes.

Magic is always carried out on the principle "Magic helps those who
help themselves." It deals with the unaccountable, unmanageable ele-
ments of luck, chance, and misfortune. It never tackles the ordinary
forces of nature, which are always managed by man with his own hands.
Exactly the same may be said of the magic of war, of love, of enterprise,
and of health. Everywhere magic only steps in where knowledge has de-
clared its inability to deal with the situation. Far from being an assertion
of the omnipotence of thought, it is rather a humble declaration that man
throws himself on the mercies of higher supernatural forces, revealed
through sacred tradition.

We define magic as the ritual act performed to bring about a practical
result unachievable by man's unaided force. The ritual act is based on the
belief that by the strict observance of traditionally prescribed behavior,
bodily and verbal, man can influence the course of nature and the rulings
of fate. This belief is always founded on traditional mythology and on the
empirical affirmation of the power of magic. Magic has its ethical value
in that it affirms the positive issues and thus leads to courage, endurance,
and perseverance. It also makes people join in ritual work for the common
good.

To define religion quite briefly, it differs from magic in that it does not
aim at practical ends in emergencies of ordinary life. Religion, indeed,
deals with the permanent and enduring problems of human existence.
The acts of religion are not means to a practical end. Each religious ritual
is an end in itself; in communion with divinity, in sacrifice the wor-
shipper ministers to the pleasure of his god or gods; in acts of ancestor-
worship homage is made and union achieved with the spirits of the dead.
Each of such acts brings about its own end and compensation. In one
important branch of religious activities, those connected with the death
of a human being, we also see that mourning and wailing, ritualized grief,
and burial center around a spiritual rather than a practical necessity: that
of removing the pollution of death and of insuring the spiritual welfare
of the soul of the deceased. But it is easy to see that religion also removes
the mental conflict in face of metaphysical danger: religious belief
affirms the positive issues in promising man immortaHty, in bringing him
in touch with Providence, in setting him on the right way to reach personal
salvation and the good of the community.

The place of knowledge, religion, and magic in culture

How can we link up reHgion, magic, sorcery, and divination as cultural
phenomena with our noble system of interpretation in which we conceive

CULTURE AS A DETERMINANT OF BEHAVIOR

191

of culture as the vast apparatus for the satisfaction of human needs?
We have seen that the fundamental needs of the human organism, those
of food, reproduction, safety, freedom of movement, are satisfied under
culture by ad hoc systems of organized activities. Culture thus establishes
the quest for food and the industries, technical constructiveness, courtship
and marriage, kinship schemes, and military organizations.

We have seen how this cultural, roundabout way of indirect satisfac-
tion imposes secondary or derived needs. These are not innate drives of the
organism but highly derived implications of man's cultural response to
innate urges. Thus economic desires, values, standards, legal inhibitions
and the consciousness of one's rights and privileges, social ambition and
kinship sentiments, political prestige and submissiveness are essentially
himian characteristics. But they are imposed by the circumstances of
human existence in organized communities and not by reflex or instinct
or any factor of innate endowment.

But this is not the end. The vast machinery of culture is maintained,
regulated, and preserved by the body of traditional lore. This is made
possible by language, which allows man to formulate general rules and
condense them into concepts. Thus, to systems of action there correspond
systems of thought. Action must be based on foresight and on the grip
of the context. Man deals with nature and his fellow beings by construc-
tive and imaginative handling of each situation. He has to lay down the
results of past experience into systems, fixed, standardized, yet withal
plastic. These he hands over from generation to generation.

Systems of human knowledge exist even among the lowest primitives.
They must have existed from the very beginning of humanity. The
widespread misconception that primitive man has no rudiments of science,
that he lives in a hazy, mystical, or infantile world, has to be rejected in
the light of our fuller knowledge of primitive cultures.

But though knowledge is easily accounted for, what are the natural
foundations of religion and magic? That which establishes man's fijial
superiority over the animals, his power of symboUc and constructive
thought, imposes on him also great burdens. It reveals to him the funda-
mental uncertainty and limitation of his own existence. In order to think
clearly man has to look back and remember; he has to look forward and
foresee; and that means he is subject to fear as well as to hope. Man, of all
the animals, cannot Kve in the present; he cannot lead a hand-to-mouth
existence from moment to moment. This must finally bring him to ponder
on topics where emotions blend with cold reason and where the answer
is dictated by emotions though it is largely framed by reason.

What is the ultimate destiny of man and of mankind? What is the
meaning of life and the relations between man and the universe? Whence
have we come and whither are we bound, and what is the sense of all
man's fears, sufferings, and disappointments? Metaphysics and religious

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CULTURE AND MYTH

Speculation are as old as knowledge and as old as language itself. At the
beginning they are extremely simple and crude. Animism and beliefs in
magical force, fantasies about sorcery, ghosts, vampires, and totemism —
that is, the belief in the spiritual affinity between man and nature — are
the answers of primitive man to the fundamental riddles of life. Once
we realize their real nature it is easy to perceive their great value. They are
well adapted to the Hmited conditions in which primitives have to live,
they contain the answer to the questions of whence and whither, and above
all they supply man with ritual means of getting in touch with spiritual
forces, of establishing communion with ancestral spirits, totemic beings,
or divinities, and they allow man to secure his immortality and thus to
give sense to his life.

Knowledge, magic, and rehgion are the highest, the most derived im-
peratives of human culture. Indirectly and through several relays they
also are the outcome of man's organic needs. The craving for religion
and for magical power, and scientific curiosity as well, are not instinctive.
They are the outcome and the correlate of that intelligent adjustment of
man to his environment which makes him the master thereof. Magic and
to a much higher degree religion are the indispensable moral forces in
every human culture. Grown out, as they are, of the necessity to remove
internal conflict in the individual and to organize the community, they
become the essential factors of spiritual and social integration. They deal
with problems which affect all members of the community alike. They
lead to actions on which depends the welfare of one and all. Religion and
to a lesser extent magic thus become the very foundations of culture.

Summary and conclusions

By now, I trust, we all realize that there exist laws of cultural process,
and that their discovery is the main task of scientific anthropology.

I have started with the affirmation that there is a science of culture. I
hope that throughout the succeeding pictures of living cultures with
their variety and diversity of forms, throughout the analysis of what
these cultures have in common and how they differ, we have all realized
that there is an underlying fundamental sameness; that it is possible to
establish the common measure which is indispensable for the scientific
treatment of any type of reaUty.

We have found everywhere that observation can be made fruitful,
relevant, and convincing only if it is inspired by a theory of the nature
of culture. Culture in the first place has to satisfy the organic needs of
man. From the indirect, that is cultural, satisfaction of these, there arise
further instrumental imperatives. Finally, in the spiritual realm, culture
implies the integrative principles of knowledge, religion, ethics, and
magical technique. Every human culture can be analyzed by the same
universally valid concepts, derived from a theory which again consists of

CULTURE AS A DETERMINANT OF BEHAVIOR

193

a system of general laws. At the same time, we have found that there is
only one type of really scientific theory, and that is a theory which is
dictated by observation and which can be tested by it.

The general concepts and laws I need not summarize for you. They
result from the universal occurrence of such aspects of human culture
as economics and education, law and political organization, magic, reli-
gion, art, and recreation. The cultural activities, again, in every society
integrate into natural units, which we have called institutions. And here
again it is possible to draw up a list or table of such institutions. The
family, the extended kinship grouping, the clan, the village community,
the tribe, and the nation are such universal institutions. If we add to
them such more diversified types as occupational groups, economic teams,
voluntary associations, we have a number of cultural entities each of
which is amenable to laws and generalizations, and each of which must
be studied by the same outfit of concepts.

In the vast system of institutional activities which corresponds to the
fact of reproduction, we have listed such laws as the dominance of the
initial situation; the principle of legitimacy, defining the legal aspect of
parenthood; the further principle that marriage leads to the establishment
of a domestic unit; the concept of the unilateral and bilateral kinship
principles in reproduction, and the principle that the clan is not equivalent
in influence to the family, but a derivate.

Whether we study economics as an aspect or whether we proceed to the
definition of such specific economic institutions as agriculture, cattle-
breeding, the organized activity of the hunting team, we can and must
base our studies on a series of general laws or principles. We have to
inquire into the economic process in its three phases: production, distribu-
tion and exchange, and consumption. We have to study these three
phases as they permeate the whole of tribal life. We cannot understand
the titles to property except through the role which they play in pro-
duction and the influence which production exercises on property.
Again, we find that unless we consider economics in conjunction with the
organizing forces of religion and of magic, of law and politics, we shall
always miss some of the most important realities of economics.

Had we more time, we should have been able to construct equally ex-
haustive theories of primitive law and primitive education, of the part
played by recreation in primitive societies, and of the principles of
artistic activities in their social and cultural aspect.*

In the course of our analysis we have had to emphasize the point that
every cultural phenomenon presents to us three main facts: the material,

*The reader might perhaps compare my Crime and Custom in Primitive Society,
1926; the article, "Kinship," in Man, 1930, p. 19, where a bibliography of my publica-
tions on kinship will be found [see p. 153 of Sex, Culture, and Myth]; and the small
book, The Definition of Culture, shortly to be published.

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CULTURE AND MYTH

the social, and the spiritual. The first is best approached through the
analysis of the material substratum of culture; the second by the study
of institutions; the third through the linguistic approach. For, although
I am not a behaviorist, I believe that it is best to study mental processes
in their objective, outward manifestations.

Thus I maintain that the subject-matter of the comparative study of
cultures does lend itself to sober, scientific treatment. I also maintain
that this treatment is indispensable, especially from the point of view
of actual research in the field.

I have tried to define the scope of anthropology, the pioneer among
social sciences in the empirical approach to determinism. Determinism
does exist in cultural process, and the scientific statement of this process
must be deterministic, objective, fully documented, and unaffected by
personal and impressionistic distortion. Scientific anthropology, as you
have seen, must work on the foundations laid down by biology and
physiology; it must work hand in hand with the psychologist; and it must
learn as much as it can learn from the student of environment, the
geographer.

Our plea for scientific anthropology, of course, is not tantamount to
an indictment or exorcism of all the attractive and amusing speculations.
Evolutionary aper^us, indeed, I regard as indispensable. Careful and sober
diflFusionist hypotheses seem to me quite profitable. To minimize or dis-
card a really human interest in humanism would be a crime. To mix up
or confuse the emotional or artistic approach with the scientific is a
serious lack of judgment. The two approaches must be used simultane-
ously; they have to complement each other. But science must furnish
the foundation.

The scientific theory of culture has also brought to light some really
vital truths. Is the recognition of the universal stability and permanence
of the family and marriage of no interest in these days when domestic
institutions seem to be threatened on every side? The anthropologist might
almost add: "As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be."
That communism cannot be a panacea for all our cultural troubles may
also be an interesting appreciation. We have seen that communism alone
is never to be found in any culture, however primitive or complex. We
have seen, also, why communism as an economic system cannot work
except in conjunction with slavery. On the other hand, pure individualism
does not exist anywhere either. So that some admixture of communism,
that is, public control, has always worked and worked well. But it cannot
work wonders, or cure all evils. We have defined the role of the super-
natural as an integrating and organizing force in society. One of the
implications of our analysis was that the abuse of law and political power
must always lead to cultural disaster. Science and virtue, efficiency and
endurance, courage and chastity can never be dictated by edicts, nor

CULTURE AS A DETERMINANT OF BEHAVIOR

195

enflamed by oratory, nor yet forced into existence by a system of police
spies and police brutalities. To replace religion and morality by the secret
service of a totalitarian state is a disease of culture.

For we have fully acknowledged the existence of cultural maladjust-
ment, and even of lethal ailments of civilization. The very concepts of
adaptation and function imply degrees and qualifications, from excellence
to decay.

Our present civilization is undoubtedly passing through a very severe,
perhaps a critical stage of maladjustment. The abuse of legal and admin-
istrative power; the inability to create lasting conditions of peace; the
recrudescence of aggressive militarism and magical trickery; the torpor
of true religion and the assumption of a religious garb by doctrines of
racial or national superiority, or the gospel of Marx — all this shows that,
while we have become the masters of inanimate nature, we have con-
nived at the complete enslavement of man by machine.

The greatest need of today is to establish a balance between the stu-
pendous power of natural science and its applications, and the self-
inflicted backwardness of social science and the consequent impotence of
social engineering. To repeat a truism just mentioned, we have allowed
the machine to overpower man. One of the reasons for this is that we
have learned to understand, hence to respect and to handle, the mecha-
nism. But we have failed to develop the really scientific spirit in humanism.

The following paragraph served as conclusion to the Harvard address:
Today the freedom to exercise purely scientific determinism is threatened in
■many countries. This freedom is even more essential for social than for natural
science. It is, therefore, our duty on this occasion to insist on the necessity for
this freedom. We are assembled here to celebrate the tercentenary of one of
the greatest workshops of science and reason ever established by man. The
founding of Harvard was an act of human behavior not outside reason and
determinism. It was determined by wise foresight, and its existence and work
have been enduring factors in developing reason and determining rational be-
havior. Harvard has always fostered that spirit of science which means freedom
in the search for truth, for the laws of nature and of human behavior. Let this
spirit preside over the development of the comparative science of man, and
we may yet hope that the spirit of Harvard — that is, the spirit of science — will
prevail in the conduct of human affairs.

MAN'S CULTURE AND MAN'S BEHAVIOR

The scientific basis of anthropology must be estabhshed, for anthropology
as the theory of culture provides in many ways the scientific basis of all
studies concerned with man, his behavior, and his achievements. Culture
is clearly the fullest context of all human activities. It is the vast instru-
mentality through which man achieves his ends, both as an animal that
must eat, rest, and reproduce; and as the spiritual being who desires to
extend his mental horizons, produce works of art, and develop systems
of faith. Thus, culture is at the same time the minimum mechanism for
the satisfaction of the most elementary needs of man's animal nature, and
also an ever-developing, ever-increasing system of new ends, new values,
and new creative possibilities.

An understanding of what this reality is, how it works, how it is con-
stituted and determined, is indispensable for all humanists alike. The
archaeologist and the historian, who have to reconstruct the past cultural
reality from partial data, monumental or documentary, must base their
reconstruction on the laws determining the relations between a part and
the whole, between economic and juridical phenomena, and between the
structure of a society and its creative output. They must be in possession
of a scientific theory of culture, or else indulge in more or less inspired,
sound, but always intuitive guesswork. In economics and the science of
law it is becoming increasingly recognized that the processes of produc-
tion, exchange, and consumption do not happen in a vacuum, but within
a cultural context; while legislation, the behavior of judges and juries,
and the effective sanction of legal rules depend upon such factors as
public opinion, economic necessities, the level of education, and the type
of religion and ethics prevalent in a society. It seems hardly even necessary

This lecture was first presented before the Union College Symposium, "Science
Views Man," March 1941, and published in American Scientist, October 1941
(Vol. 29, No. 3 and 4), pp. 182-96; and January 1942 (Vol. 30, No. 2), pp.
66-78, and is reprinted by permission.

man's culture and man's behavior

197

to stress the fact that the student of contemporary social phenomena and
also the psychologist must attack their problems within the real context
in which these happen: the context of culture.

Science — to give an unpretentious yet clear definition or reminder — is
the translation of experience into general laws which have predictive value.
We have to inquire, then, whether it is possible to establish general rules
and principles concerning cultural process and product. Such rules, to be
scientific, must be inferred from observation and be subject to experi-
mental test. They must be generalizations of universal validity. It is
essential to have statements of principle which remain true whether ap-
plied to primitive or to highly developed culture, to an Arctic community
or a tropical island tribe in the Pacific. We have to establish clearly deter-
mined relations between cultural variables embodied into formulae of
general applicability.

From the slightly different point of view, it can be stated that science
establishes order into its particular subject matter by isolating the relevant
factors and forces. It will then be necessary to prove that such relevant
factors of structure and forces controlling the process do exist in the
domain of culture. Such systems of relevant concatination would give us
the clue for the observation of a new culture and the means of describing
it adequately. They would also provide the common measure for the
comparative, that is, theoretical treatment of all phenomena of organized
behavior.

The legitimate subject matter of anthropology, as well as of other social
sciences, is culture. The experimental approach to this subject matter must
be based on direct observation of collective, organized behavior through
field work. By field work I mean the study of living communities and
their material culture, whether at a low level of development or within our
own civilizations. Such study must be guided by the general theory of
culture, whereas observation has to be stated in terms of general prin-
ciple. As in all sciences, so also here, we shall have to inquire whether
the final test of applicability through planned social engineering is possible
in the case of social studies.

I am purposely omitting from my definition of the scientific approach
the test of quantitative approach, the feasibility of mathematical or semi-
mathematical formulation. It is clear that wherever phenomena amenable
to counting and measuring are considered, the scientific approach would
demand this type of operation. Also, in the rare cases where statistics
yield sufficient data for curves or equations, these instrumentalities must
be used. The general complexity of a subject matter makes it, as a rule,
less amenable to quantitative treatment. In all such treatment, grave
errors are introduced and increased in any algebraic manipulations when-
ever entities are counted or computed that are not really identical. The
problem, therefore, of identity or of isolation of relevant factors and of

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CULTURE AND MYTH

their relations is one which must be solved first, and then only can we
debate whether mathematical formulations are likely to introduce more
clarity or more presumptuous error into our arguments. It goes without
saying that in vital statistics, in certain economic transactions, and in the
description of technical processes, especially at higher levels, the quantita-
tive, as well as the mathematical, procedures have been already employed
and cannot be left out of consideration.

As regards the primary character of science, that is, the cross-fertiliza-
tion of observed fact and theoretical argument, the anthropologist has
certain initial advantages and can claim certain achievements. Engaged
as he is in the study of primitive cultures for which there are no historic
records and very little archaeological documentation, the anthropologist,
by the very nature of his material, was driven into the field. He had
to become his own chronicler and to establish perhaps the first laboratory
of social science in methodical ethnographic researches in the field. Since
observation always implies theory, we find in modern anthropological
studies that exchange of inspiration which comes from the simultaneous
contact with facts and the striving to subsume them under general prin-
ciples.

The wide range of cultural diversities was another motive that inspired
the scientific bent in modern anthropology. Sound generalization must
be derived from comparison and the use of the inductive method, and
here again, unless there is some theoretical common measure of compari-
son, our induction fails.

As regards applications, anthropology has not as yet many achievements
to its credit. Nevertheless, it may be said that social engineering presents
certain facilities and a degree of viability when it comes to colonial affairs
lacking under our own modern conditions. The colonial power has a
control, legislative and administrative, over a primitive tribe, far greater
than that admissible in a democratic commonwealth. Totalitarian experi-
mentation, again, is not based in its sociological aspect on a scientific
pohcy. In democratic countries, the typical politician is a disturbing link
when it comes to the scientific guidance of pubUc events. He is, as a rule,
more keen to become a lawgiver than to be amenable to law in the
scientific sense.

Obviously anthropology has no claims whatsoever to deal with the
scientific problem of culture alone. It had certain initial advantages. To
use them fully it must, first and foremost, disclaim some spurious pre-
tenses. The savages are not the only representatives of man. We know
full well that modern savagery is as illuminating as its primitive version.
Thus, sociology, as soon as it becomes fully infected with the field-work
habits of the anthropologist, will have at least quite as much to contribute
to the scientific theory of culture as its humbler collaborator. Indeed, in
the science of culture we would fail completely as anthropologists unless

man's culture and man's behavior

199

full cooperation is established between the study of the human mind, of
modern societies and cultures, and of such well-established specialities as
jurisprudence and economics.

The nature of cultural process

Considering culture as a whole, that is, at all levels and in any environ-
ment, recognition must first be given to its instrumental character. We
might survey the organization of an Arctic community, a tribe living in
the tropical jungle, a horde of lowest primitives, such as the Australian
aborigines, and anywhere and everywhere we would find them wielding
a body of implements, following rules of behavior, cherishing ideas and
beliefs, engaging through all this in activities which integrate into a vast
and complex instrumental apparatus. At higher levels of development, in
the New World civilizations of Mexico or Peru, in ancient Egypt or in
modern Europe, the apparatus and the activities are more highly devel-
oped, but the total effect is instrumental and so is every one of the dif-
ferential phases. Man everywhere is maintained by his culture, allowed
to reproduce, as well as instructed and assisted in this, supplied with
techniques, knowledge, recreation, art, and religion.

Were one to look more closely at any particular culture, every activity
would be found to be related to some organization or other. In each we
would find a group cooperating, linked by common interests and a pur-
pose. Members of such a group or institution own conjointly a portion
of the environment, some implements or machines, and dispose of a
quota of national wealth. They obey prescribed norms of conduct and
are trained in particular skills. Through their activities thus normed
and implemented, they achieve their purpose or intentions, known to
everybody and socially recognized. They also produce an impression on
the environment, social and physical; they achieve results which can be
revealed through a sociological analysis.

We would find such groups in the homes of the people as family groups
and domestic institutions, and that the food supply and the production of
goods and implements is the result of such organized cooperative work.
The temples and the courts of law are maintained and run by groups of
people organized for a purpose, moved by definite motives or values, and
having a special function in public life.

This surface impression, dictated by sound common sense, might lead
the observer to the statement of a few generalizations. Culture as a whole
is an extensive instrumental system of organized activities. It is exercised
by a system of related institutions, that is, groups of people united by
common interest, endowed with material equipment, following rules of
their tradition or agreement, and contributing towards the work of the
culture as a whole. The interests that supply the motive power and dictate
the tasks of the group are at times physiological, as in food production,

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CULTURE AND MYTH

domestic life, and defense mechanisms. There are, however, other interests,
values, and motives connected with science or with art which transcend
any biological determinism. We are thus led to the fuller analysis as to
what the drives or motives of human beings are, and also as to the prin-
ciples and forces of human organization.

As regards the drives, man is obviously an animal; hence his organic
needs will always give rise to a permanent biological determinism in all
behavior. Men eat, sleep, reproduce, and protect their body from exces-
sive temperature, as well as from physical destruction. There is a mini-
mum of elementary conditions that has to be fulfilled so that the individ-
ual organism survives and the group retains its numbers. Even a slight,
but progressive, deterioration of the healthy organic state would inevitably
lead to cultural extinction.

It is equally important to realize that human beings live not by bio-
logical drives alone, but also by physiological drives molded and modi-
fied by culture. As regards nutrition, food and its intake are not a mere
exchange between man and environment. In a primitive tribe or a
civilized community, there is an organized system of production, dis-
tribution, storing, and preparing, which provides each member with his
meals. Here again, consumption, that is, the intake of food, is fashioned
by the taste, taboos, and hygienic rules, which partly limit and partly
redirect the normal appetite. Propagation is determined, in its very im-
pulse, by the ideals of beauty and desirability in which the sex impulse
integrates with aesthetic, economic, and social considerations. The rules
of specific taboo, such as incest and exogamy, as well as of preferential
mating, dictate the type of courtship, whereas the production of children
is universally defined by the law of marriage. Nor are the results of prop-
agation merely biological. The extensive systems of kinship ties and
grouping into clans, so prevalent in primitive communities, are the trans-
lation into sociological norms of the results of biological propagation.
Bodily exercise is determined by economic labor and by systems of sports,
recreational pursuits, or even artistic activities. Thus, man everywhere acts
under culturally determined incentives; he submits to the norms prescribed
by tradition; he cooperates and pools, or redistributes, the produce of his
labor.

There are certain phases in human behavior even more removed from
biological fact than those here described. In a primitive tribe there are
objects of magical virtues or religious sanctity or economic value: the
famous bull-roarers of central Australia, the totemic poles of the north-
western American tribes, or the millstones known from Micronesia. In
order to understand the value attached to such objects and the activities
that surround them, it would be necessary to enter a world of mythological
antecedents or social and economic conventions. We would have to learn
the meaning of the dogmatic principles and see how they are expressed

man's culture and man's behavior

201

in ritual, or economic transaction, or ethics. To understand why certain
people indulge in head-hunting and others practice cannibalism, why in
certain cultures valuable objects are produced only in order to be de-
stroyed, would obviously require consideration of the formation of cul-
tural value, of legal principle, as well as the native conceptions of wealth,
social ranking, and the realities of magical or religious belief.

Accordingly, man is not merely impelled by hunger and thirst, by
love, and the desire to sleep. There are other motives connected with
ambition, rank, doctrine, and mythology which establish as powerful
incentives for conduct as do those of an innate drive. Instrumentality
obtains throughout. In other words, it is always found that a human being
is impelled to a specific activity in order to attain a desired end. It is
obvious, however, that culture solves not merely the simple organic prob-
lems, but creates new problems, inspires new desires, and establishes a new
universe in which man moves, never completely free from his organic
needs, but also following new ends and stimulated to new satisfactions.

All this does not imply that cultural determinism introduces a mere
chaos of relativity in which we would have to resort to the arbitrary
biddings of a deus ex machina of some specific tribal or cultural genius.
We shall be able to give a clear definition and catalogue of the biological
needs that are the prime movers of human behavior. We shall also clearly
establish what we mean by derived needs or instrumental imperatives.
Finally, it will be possible to show that the integrative values, such as
ideas, belief, moral rule, are also determined and significant through their
relation to culture as a whole. The needs of the organism and the raw
materials supplied by the environment are the elements of the primary,
or biological, determinism. The indirect cultural situation, however, in
which the raw materials are obtained and elaborated and the human organ-
ism adjusted imposes new cultural, that is, instrumental and integrative
imperatives, which are subject to determinism, hence also to scientific
analysis.

The ability to establish and to maintain the cultural apparatus confers
enormous advantages on mankind, advantages that consist, on the one
hand, in a safer and fuller satisfaction of organic needs; and, on the
other hand, in the gift of new impulses and new satisfactions. Culture
thus satisfied first the minimum standard of living, that of organic sur-
vival. It also adds an increased artificial standard of enjoyment, in which
man reaches what usually is described as intellectual, artistic, and ethical
pleasures and satisfactions.

For all this there is a price to be paid in terms of obedience to tradition.
Man must submit to a number of rules and determinants that do not
come from his organism but from submission to his own artifact and
machinery, to cooperation, and to the tyranny of words and other sym-
bols. The oft-repeated opposition as between man and machine, in which

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CULTURE AND MYTH

man is often described as the slave of his self-produced mechanism,
his Frankenstein monster, contains an essential truth. Even when man
is not enslaved beyond the Hmits of real necessity, he becomes permanently
dependent on his artifacts, once he has started to use them. Cooperation,
the social give and take, implies a determined quota of contribution for
which man receives, generally, a larger return, but has to remain bound
to his social contract. As regards symbolic tradition, it does not always
enslave, but it invariably redirects, limits, and determines human behavior.

The biological determinism of culture

We have seen that the biological determinants appear in every culture
and that they are invariably refashioned and intertwined with other mo-
tives. The problem arises in what sense is it possible to isolate and define
biological determinism? And further, in what way is it related to more
complex cultural phenomena? The answer is contained in Figure 1, in

A. Impulse

B. Act

drive to breathe; gasp-
ing for air
hunger
thirst

sex appetite
fatigue

restlessness
somnolence

bladder pressure
colon pressure
fright
pain

intake of oxygen

ingestion of food
absorption of liquid
conjugation
rest

activity
sleep

micturition
defecation
escape from danger
avoidance by effective
act

C. Satisfaction
elimination of CO2 in tissues

satiation

quenching

detumescence

restoration of muscular and

nervous energy
satisfaction of fatigue
awakening with restored en-
ergy

removal of tension
abdominal relaxation
relaxation

return to normal state

Fig. 1. Permanent vital sequences incorporated in all cultures

which the main types of biological determinism have been summed up
severally and concretely. A set of vital sequences is there listed which,
it is maintained, are always incorporated into every culture. The concept
of vital sequence means that the central activity or biological act, listed
in column B, must be performed regularly and permanently in every
culture. This part of the performance is integrally incorporated into cul-
ture, with modifications, to be discussed later, as regards certain prereq-
uisites and the conditions under which it is allowed to happen. The
drive, listed in column A, invariably receives a profound modification,
different from one culture to another. But although modified, the drive
can be determined partly in its physiological character, partly in that it
is always connected with the biological act. The items listed in column

man's culture and man's behavior

203

C are again definable in terms of biological fact: satiation, detumescence,
the freeing of the organism of waste matter, the restoration of muscular
energy, and the using up of biochemical tensions through muscular
exercise and breathing.

The three phases can be defined by the biochemist, the physicist, and
the ecologist. The actual intake of air or food; the act of conjugation;
sleep, rest, nutrition, or excretion, are clearly defined activities, in which
several branches of natural science are interested. Thus, the concept of
vital sequence is neither vague nor devoid of substance. It refers to hap-
penings within the human organism as related to physical and cultural
environment. However much the drive or satisfaction might be refashioned
by culture, both drive and satisfaction must be of such a nature as to lead
to the performance of each physiological act, adequate in terms of biology.
We see here that the concept of form and function of human behavior is
included, since each can be defined in terms of natural science.

The vital sequence is thus the projection of a complex cultural reality
onto the physiological plane. We can now also define the concept of
basic need over and above that of drive. In each culture there must be
systems of standardized arrangements which allow of full, regular, and
general satisfaction of all the individual drives. The basic need in its
several varieties can, then, be defined as including all individual drives
that have to be satisfied so as to keep the organisms of a community in
a normal state of healthy metabolism. The non-satisfaction of any or
every basic need would imply the gradual biological deterioration of the
group, which, if cumulative, would lead to extinction. As regards pro-
creation, the basic need here requires that a sufficient incidence of effec-
tive reproduction should occur to maintain the numerical strength of a
community. In any culture where celibacy, chastity, vows, abstinences,
or castration exceeded restricted numerical limits, we would have a process
of gradual extinction. The concept of basic need dilSfers from that of drive,
in that it refers to the collective exercise of individual drives, integrated
with reference to the community as a whole. The satisfaction of basic
needs is predicated with reference to all the organisms, to environmental
conditions, and to the cultural setting of the community. It need not be,
perhaps, stressed that in the study of cultural realities, whether through
field work or in theoretical analysis, we do not resort any more to our
analysis in terms of individual drive, but have to rely on the concept of
basic need. The drive — > activity —> satisfaction analysis contains an ab-
straction of great importance for the foundations of a sound theory of
culture. In actual research, however, we do not meet this abstraction, but
are faced always with culturally organized satisfactions of integral basic
needs.

Figure 2 summarizes concretely and in a highly simplified manner the
basic needs and the cultural responses to them. Its meaning will become

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CULTURE AND MYTH

clearer in detail as our argument advances. For the present, it is clear
that it corresponds to a large extent to the list of drives. Several of them,
however, have been compressed into one entry in this figure as, for in-
stance, the need of solid foods, liquids, and intake of oxygen. All these
are associated with the process of metabolism. Another important point
is that each entry is to be considered as integrally related with reference
to need and its linked responses. For, as we already know, in the human
species biological motive never occurs in a pure and isolated form. Human
beings breathe in closed rooms or caves; they have to combine breathing
with rules of pohteness or taboo, since human breath is, in some cultures,
regarded as sacred and in others as dangerous. Nutrition, propagation, or

A. Basic needs B. Cultural re- A. Basic needs B. Cultural re-

sponses sponses

1. metabolism commissariat 5. movement activities

2. reproduction kinship 6. growth training

3. bodily com- shelter 7. health hygiene
forts

4. safety protection

Fig. 2. Basic needs and cultural responses

bodily comforts occur as formed habits. Human beings eat according to
a definite daily sequence. They conjugate in accordance with rules of law
and morals, or else against them, and thus under cultural conflict. The
need for bodily comforts does not arise in an environmental vacuum and
then send oflf the organism in search of a satisfaction. Savages and more
sophisticated beings alike wear clothes, carry out a routine of cleanliness,
live in habitations, and warm themselves at some permanent sources of
warmth. Thus it is clear that the stream of necessities of motives arising
out of each need flows, as it were, parallel to the stream of culturally
obtainable satisfactions. In the daily round of life, as well as in the seasonal
cycle, the human being normally passes through a routine of instrumental
effort and of prepared satisfaction in which biological stimulus and organic
effort are not hooked up by ad hoc, short-circuited links of desire and
satisfaction, but are interwoven into two long chains: one of large-scale
organized work on culture and for culture; the other, a systematic draw-
ing upon or consuming of already prepared cultural benefits and goods.

The instrumental phase of human behavior

To make the last argument more concrete and precise, let us again embody
it into a diagrammatic presentation:

Drive (1) — Instrumental performance — Culturally defined situation —
Drive (2) — Consummatory act — Satisfaction (meta-physiological)

Fig. 3. Instrumentally implemented vital sequence

man's culture and man's behavior

205

This is obviously a much more accurate and less abstract representation
than the vital sequence previously shown (Figure 2). Certain similarities
between the two obtain. We are here still dealing with the vital sequence,
one which includes a biological activity. There are in culture, as will be
seen later, sequences that do not include such a link. In this figure there
is a definite linkage in which all the phases are determined by the rela-
tionship between a biological drive and its satisfaction.

There are, however, differences. To be true to the reality of typical
culture concatinations, it was necessary to split the drive into two parts.
Drive ( 1 ) is the instrumental motive, the impulse to take the roundabout
way that man follows when he produces or purchases his food, prepares
it, and places it on his table. In this he acts to a certain extent like the
learning animal in a maze, who has to discover and to use the devices
which supply it with food. Sex leads the human animal not to conjuga-
tion directly, but to courtship and, in many cases, to marriage. In short,
the entire training of the human organism teaches the individual to obtain
biological ends through the recognition, appreciation, and the handling of
the appropriate means.

Drive (2) represents the culturally determined appetite. Man very
often does not eat by hunger, hardly ever by hunger alone. He eats at
the right time, the right place, and in the right company. His tastes and
values are highly shaped, and even when hungry, he will not touch food
defined in his own culture as disgusting, unpalatable, or morally repug-
nant. "One man's meat is another man's poison": my cannibal friends in
New Guinea developed a healthy appetite when confronted with mis-
sionary steak, but turned away in disgust from my tinned Camembert
cheese, sauerkraut, or frankfurters, which latter they regarded as gigantic
worms. Again, the impulse of sex which, in animal societies, occurs be-
tween any two healthy organisms, is culturally inhibited by such taboos
as those of incest, of caste prejudice, and to a lesser extent, by appreciation
of rank, class, and professional or racial discrimination. What is a com-
fortable means of sleeping to an African or a South Sea native would be
torture to a pampered Parisian or New Yorker. Nor would our beds,
bathtubs, and sanitary arrangements be convenient or even usable to a
native from the jungle. Thus there is a two-fold redetermination of
physiological drives. Cultural drive occurs in two forms, and each of
them is determined by the tradition in which an organism is trained.

Satisfaction in this series has been modified by an adjective. It appears
invariably as a cultural appetite rather than as the satisfaction of a pure
physiological drive. Breathing, as carried on by certain European com-
munities within the non-ventilated and heavily modified atmospheres of
enclosed rooms, would not satisfy an Englishman accustomed to a super-
abundance of fresh air. The satisfaction of appetite by food discovered
to be unclean ritually, magically, or in terms of what is repugnant in

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CULTURE AND MYTH

a culture does not lead to a normal state of satiety, but to a violent reac-
tion, including often sickness. The satisfaction of the sex impulse in an
illicit or socially dangerous manner produces detumescence, but also
conflicts which may lead, in the long run, to functional disease.

Thus culture determines the situation, the place, and the time for the
physiological act. It delimits it by general conditions as to what is licit
or illicit, attractive or repulsive, decent or opprobrious. Although the
act itself, as defined in terms of anatomy, physiology and interaction with
the environment, is constant, its prerequisites as well as its consequences
change profoundly.

The greatest modification, however, in this new diagram consists in
the insertion of the two terms: Instrumental phase — culturally defined
situation. The instrumental phase, as we shall see in a closer analysis, is
always an integral part of a largely organized system of activities. The
instrumentalities of food production would have to be connected with
agriculture or hunting or fishing. The storing, preparing, and consuming
of food happen in a home or a club or a restaurant. The instrumental
phase is also the open door through which such elements of culture as
artifacts, norms, and cooperative habits enter as essential constituents of
human behavior.

Let us consider any instrumental phase. Primitive fire-making subserves
the needs of cooking, warmth, and light. It implies the element of artifact,
the knowledge and techniques of friction, and also the appreciation of the
value of these objects and activities. In any food-producing instrumental
phase we would discover the use of the digging-stick, the hoe, the plough;
weapons, nets, or traps; and also the whole system of technique and knowl-
edge, of cooperation and distribution with its legal and customary basis.
In every instrumental phase of preparatory activities, the following factors
are disclosed: (1) artifacts; (2) normed behavior; (3) organized coopera-
tion; (4) symbolic communication by means of language or other signs.
These four cardinal constituents of culture are present in each phase at
any level of civilization.

One simple inference occurs immediately: the existence of culture
depends upon the mechanisms and activities through which every one
of these four constituents is produced and maintained, as well as generally
distributed. First, therefore, there must exist in every culture forms or
organization through which the material substratum of culture, that is,
the body of artifacts, are produced, distributed, and consumed. The eco-
nomic aspect of a culture is omnipresent.

The norms of behavior have to be known and they have to be enforced.
Hence again we can postulate that some mechanisms for the statement,
the interpretation, and the sanction of law and order must exist in every
community. Accordingly at higher levels there exist everywhere legislative
bodies, courts of law, and forces of police. In primitive communities

man's culture and man's behavior

207

such special institutions may be absent or rudimentary. Nevertheless, the
equivalents of codifications, of adjudication, and enforcement are never
absent. The essence of custom or norm is that it coordinates behavior;
hence it has to be known by all those who cooperate. Many norms curb
innate tendencies, define privileges and duties, limit ambition, and circum-
scribe the use of wealth. There is invariably a tendency to circumvent
them. Together with the need of force implied in the imperative of social
order, we have in authority a principle which implies the existence of force
socially determined and physically implemented. We find everywhere,
therefore, the political principle, that is, the socially or culturally deter-
mined distribution of force and the right to use it.

Finally, we found that communication, through language and other
symbolic means, and the transmission of culture are essential parts of
our extended instrumental sequence. Both can be subsumed under the
concept of training, insofar as the skills, technical and social rules of
conduct have to be implanted in the growing organism and maintained
through precept and exhortation. Education, at all levels, can be differ-
entiated into schooling and adult education. Thus the derived need of
training or fashioning of the organism for its cultural tasks is one which
can be listed as the fourth derived imperative of culture.

Figure 4 gives a condensed presentation of the instrumental needs of
culture and of the organized responses to them. We have only to add

1. The cultural apparatus of imple-
ments and consumers' goods must
be produced, used, maintained, and
replaced by new production.
Economics

3. The human material by which every
institution is maintained must be re-
newed, formed, drilled, and pro-
vided with full knowledge of tribal
tradition.
Education

2. Human behavior, as regards its
technical, customary, legal, or moral
prescription must be codified, regu-
lated in action and sanctioned.
Social control

4. Authority within each institution
must be defined, equipped with
powers, and endowed with means of
forceful execution of its orders.
Political organization

Fig. 4. Table of instrumental imperatives

that the instrumental imperatives have the same degree of cogency as
those derived directly from biological needs. We have shown that all
vital sequences occur in culture through instrumental implementation.
Hence no biological need, that is, no need of the community as a whole,
can be normally and regularly satisfied without the full and adequate
working of the instrumental responses. These latter constitute together
the integral mechanism through which the whole set of basic need receives
its regular flow of satisfaction in every culture. Since even the simplest
culture raises the level of the quantitative and qualitative standard of

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CULTURE AND MYTH

living and thus alienates any human group from the direct hand-to-mouth
satisfaction by contact with environment, the breakdown of the cultural
machinery would imply at least gradual extinction.

Confirmation of this fact is evident when we look at the evidence of
historical facts. A serious breakdown in the economic, poHtical, or legal
order which usually also implies deterioration in the systems of knowledge
and ethics, leads human groups to disorganization and to the sinking of
the cultural level. The breakdown of many simpler cultures under the
impact of Western civilization and the extinction of many racial groups
supply one sample. The ever-recurrent decay of once flourishing cultures,
which are then replaced by others or else enter a period of Dark Ages, is
another case in point. Even today we are faced with a serious threat to
culture, that of total war, which is waged not merely in terms of destruc-
tion and physical aggression, but also as economic war against the systems
of production and, above all, nutritive maintenance. As propaganda, it
aims at the breaking down of moral and social resistance through the
sapping of the constitutional principles of organization, both as regards
defense and the normal working of institutions.

The emergence of culture

A clear definition of the symbolic process is still lacking. Its existence was
implied throughout, especially in our statements concerning the codes of
human behavior, the rules of conduct, the educational processes which
largely consist in verbal instruction, and the inculcation of systems of
value.

It will be helpful to turn once more to very simple cultural conditions
that are on the borderline between the precultural behavior of man, the
animal, and the emergence of truly cultural conduct. From the well-
known facts of animal training, which have been now raised to a system
of principles embodied in the psychology of stimulus and response, it is
established that apes and lower animals can acquire habits and be taught
to use artifacts. It is a fair assumption that precultural man, living under
conditions of nature, was led frequently to the instrumental use of
material objects. Whenever he was placed, with a fair degree of regularity,
under conditions resembling those of an experimental maze in which the
rat or the guinea pig is being trained, he probably developed individual
habits. An individual habit implies at least the development of a skill,
the appreciation of the instrumental value of an object and, finally, the
retention of both skill and appreciation. This integral retention, diagram-
matically embodied in our presentation of instrumentally implemented
series, corresponds to the concept of reinforcement, so fruitfully used by
Clark Hull and other contemporary psychologists, as the pivotal principle
of animal learning. It is not difficult to see that reinforcement, which
means the integral retention by an animal organism of a definite sequence

man's culture and man's behavior

209

in instrumental activities, contains two concepts of great importance to
the student of culture, the concept of symbol and that of value.

Reinforcement, however, accounts only for the formation of habits,
that is, of individual acquired types of behavior. As long as habit is not
infectious or public, it is not a real unit of culture. Culture begins when
the transition between habit and custom is made. Custom can be defined
as a habit made public by communication from one individual to others
and transferable, that is, capable of being ingrained by one generation
on to the next.

We have to introduce two more factors as indispensable prerequisites
for the transformation of habits into customs. First, the existence of a
group in permanent contact and related on the genealogical principle
must be assumed. We have further to assume the existence of means of
communication which would make possible discourse and symbolic train-
ing. The means of communication, moreover, have to be linked and
standardized into traditional statements that can be transmitted from
the elder generation to the younger. Thus it is necessary to add two more
factors to those previously listed.

And once more we come upon the same list of the cardinal constituents
of culture: artifacts, skills, that is, norms of behavior; organized groups;
and means of communications, that is, symbols and theoretical systems
of precept and value.

The raw materials of both sociability and symbolism can also be
assumed as pre-existent to the actual emergence of culture. The long
infancy of the human species and the formation of families and of family
groups was undoubtedly precultural. These are mere assumptions for
which proof need not be given, but which are essentially plausible.

The same condition is evident with respect to the raw materials of
symbolism. If precultural man was occasionally driven into developing
habits, his behavior was determined by what the modern psychologist calls
conditioned stimuli. Finding himself regularly within a context of situa-
tion and under the urge of a biological drive with no direct satisfaction,
he would resort to instrumental behavior. In this the instrument, a
piece of wood or stone, and the association of previous effective activity
with this object would provide the cue or the conditioned stimulus to
action. The fact that an environmental sign directs the organism to
action is essentially symbolic.

Thus we can say that the artifact itself, the typical context of circum-
stance, the habitual technique, all these functioned symbolically, as well
as instrumentally. It may also be assumed that the example of a perform-
ance was an act instilled with demonstrative symbolism. When this is
added to such symbolic raw material as the bodily or facial expression of
emotions, the deictic or otherwise significant gesture, and the natural
sound symbols characteristic of many animal performances, it is apparent

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that symbolism, as significant direction of activity between one organism
and another, may, indeed, must have been, precultural.

This allows us to define our idea of cultural emergence by relating a
number of empirically substantial facts. The birth of culture probably
occurred as a gradual, maybe age-long, process. It was not the miraculous
occurrence of sudden speech or intelligence or invention or social organi-
zation. It consisted instead of the all-round systematic and effective inte-
gration of the partial increments of cultural behavior. As soon as the
use of artifacts, the employment of skills gradually tended to become
cooperative; in the measure as cooperation led to the development of
significant signs and sounds, entering into concerted work as an integral
system of links; and these systems of behavior became fixed into tradition;
culture was born. The pervading principle of cultural behavior might
perhaps be subsumed under the concept of value.

Value means a deep change in the whole organism, especially, no
doubt, in the nervous system. It refers to all those attitudes which make
for the retention of habits, the submission to traditional rules, the appre-
ciation of and permanent grip upon material objects, and the adequate
action and reaction in terms of an articulate sound or formally determined
symbol. This latter aspect became, from the very outset, embodied in
systems of theoretical knowledge, of behef, and of mythological or
historical tradition.

The nature of symbolic interaction

Symbolism, as a type of human activity, as a means of communication,
and as the basic substratum of tradition, needs some further considera-
tion. It is necessary, first, to make clear the relation between the instru-
mental use of a device and its symbolic function. Insofar as an activity is
performed as a means to an end — objects handled, devices constructed and
used — it can be stated that the organism is engaged in the instrumental
use of the apparatus. Even when a certain device is used in a cooperative
manner, and there occurs an exchange of services in the concerted per-
formance of the task, it can be stated that the cooperating organisms are
instrumentally related. But the same artifacts, devices, and habits may act
as signals or cues. One need only think of direct signaling at a distance
or of one member of a hunting or fishing team following the lead of
another when he sees him perform an activity or is made aware of it by
a symbol. In this case the act, the object, or the sound play a symbolic
role within the context of concerted action.

Even when we approach cooperative processes fully learned and well
practiced, the distinction between the symbol and the instrumental func-
tion of any partial performance can be shown as relevant. It is only
necessary to remember that no cooperative situation, no concerted human
action is so fully a matter of routine that the need for reorientation or

man's culture and man's behavior

211

redirection would not enter. This need is always subserved by the occur-
rence of a symbolic gesture or a sound which thus is an essential element
in all the improvised, reoriented, readjusted phases of human coopera-
tion. The distinction between the symbolic and instrumental function is
even clearer in the process of learning. The relevant cues or conditioned
stimuli which lead the precultural animal or the learning human individ-
ual through the maze of a new situation stand out as the constant or
unvarying signposts regularly encountered on the path to achievement.
They are the symbolic elements which, together with the drive, the
intrinsic instrumentality within the material setting, and the final rein-
forcement, lead to the acquisition of the habit.

The clear appreciation of the exact nature of symbolism in terms of
learning, of cooperation, and of environmental factors will allow us rapidly
to indicate the lines on which typical symbolic systems, of which language
is the most important, gradually develop. Here, again, the misconception
that a sound or a gesture "is made to stand for something else" must be
restated into the correct assumption that the symbolic object or act is
invariably a stimulus to action. The raw material for this can be found
once more in the prearticulate sounds of infants. The cry of an infant
is symbolic in that within the social context of domesticity, it summons
another person, the mother, father, or nurse, and commands attention
and help. Insofar as such sounds can be discriminated by those in charge as
cries for food, for cleansing, or as symptoms of pain or anger, they are
significant. Significance always depends on the context of situation, in-
cluding the principal actors, on the requirements of one organism, and
on the readiness of adequate response by others.

Exactly how articulate sounds developed from prearticulate grunts,
exclamations, cries, or calls, can be left for the consideration of linguists,
especially those who prefer to hunt for unverifiable hypotheses rather
than to study the general determinism of language. The fact is that
articulation has occurred and that it probably occurred very early in
the development of human culture.

The assumption of the emergence of articulate words, however, does
not imply the slightest divergence from our concept of symbolism. The
articulate word, exactly as a material object, a gesture, or a prearticulate
sound, is invariably the signal to action. On the prototype of infantile
cries the development of significant names for members of a cooperative
group can be assumed, and by names we simply mean here an unequivo-
cal means of attracting, mobilizing, selecting a definite individual. Again,
on the pattern of significant gestures, of the pointing out of an object,
we can assume that articulate names for important factors of the environ-
ment gradually came into being. The distinction between stone and wood,
between plants and earth, between food and non-edible objects, became
incorporated into the human vocabulary. Such nominal elements in Ian-

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CULTURE AND MYTH

guage function pragmatically in the concerted action of all primitives.
Both for rapid instruction and effective cooperation they are indispensable.
It can also be seen here how grammatical categories are determined, not
by the logic of reflection, but by distinctions inherent in the pragmatism
of concerted action on a sociological basis. The modification of nouns;
that is, the various typical relations of ownership, dependence, physical
position in space, were naturally implemented by the grammatical instru-
mentahties of accidence and of prepositional determination.

Certain qualifications of substances to be used, "cold" or "warm,"
"dry" or "wet," "hard" or "soft" had to be verbally implemented, since
the definition of state or quahty or utility as raw materials for an artifact
must early have become part of instruction in training, in cooperation,
and in planning.

Another type of influencing by signals must have been the imperative
call to action, increasingly diversified and differentiated. Here also it is
quite easy to see how articulate words became only more viable and effec-
tive substitutes for gesture and prearticulate sound. Verbs referring to
forms of movement, the various modifications in the behavior of the
human hand or leg, may have been first to appear. And here also the
grammatical categories, in order to be effective in instruction, had to
express temporal, as well as modal, modifications. The grammatical forms
of conjugation must be related to commands and instruction concerning
action in the pragmatic use of language as between elders and children
and co-workers in concerted activity. The sociological basis of language
obviously implies pronominal elements, inherent both in the modifications
of verbs, insofar as the action is either that of self or of thou or of the
other, and in the determination of nouns in possessive relations. Thus,
vocabulary and grammar alike can be related to the categories of socially
organized, traditionally defined, and coordinated systems of cultural
activity.

The main source of scientific insight into the nature of language as an
ingredient of all human activities is found in the study of lingustic learn-
ing by children and in the observation of how words are used pragmat-
ically; that is, how they function in human work.

Language in proleptic instructions always refers to a future situation
of activity, in that its understanding is always based on a past experience
of words used within a similar context. The narrative, in its almost
indefinite range of varieties, is comprehensible only through the fact that
it refers to a past context, partially known but linguistically supple-
mented by certain variables also famiUar from previous experiences. One
type of narrative, the one couched in the most general terms, is neither
more nor less than scientific theory. For scientific theory is, as we know,
the most general statement of a type-situation empirically formulated

man's culture and man's behavior

213

with the proleptic intent of future guidance. Historical or traditional
narratives very often refer to important events from the past, which
have established a precedent in the legal, moral, or religious sense. The
religious narrative or the sacred story or mythology of a tribe very often
is an account of revelation; that is, of direct contact between man and
the supernatural universe.

The integrative imperatives of human behavior:
knowledge and belief

It has just been shown that the understanding of the symbolic function
of language and other standardized signs leads directly to the existence
of systems of knowledge and belief. Any system of signs, gestures, or
sounds which, through instrumental behavior, supplies the means of defin-
ing an object, of reconstructing a process, of standardizing a technique,
can be regarded as a primitive form of scientific theory. Indeed, such a
symbolic system, in its very simplest form, had to be precise in the sense
that it provided a correct formula for the permanent incorporation and
transmission of the technical achievement to which it refers. The system
was effective because the drive of the physiological need was transferred
and permanently linked to the objects and habits which adequately,
although indirectly, subserved the satisfaction of the drive.

Such systems could be neither prelogical nor mystical. Principles of
human knowledge based on true experience and on logical reasoning and
embodied partly in verbal statements, partly in the context of situation
to which these refer, exist even among the lowest primitives. They must
have existed from the very beginning of cultural tradition. Had this at
any moment lapsed into mysticism or false interpretation of fact; or had
it sinned against logic — that is, the principle of identity — human actions,
techniques, and economic routine would have become false and useless,
and the culture would have been destroyed in its very foundations.
Knowledge, then, as the symbolic system organizing all the phases of
reasonable human behavior — that is, behavior in which experience is
logically integrated — is a permanent and essential imperative of human
culture.

Knowledge, however, introduces certain new elements into the organic
diathesis of man. Knowledge implies foresight, calculation, and systematic
planning. In this it not only reveals to man how to achieve certain ends,
but also lays bare the fundamental uncertainties and Hmitations of human
planning, of his calculations, and, indeed, of his very existence. The very
fact that man, however primitive, becomes accustomed to thinking clearly,
to looking ahead, and also to remembering the past, makes him also aware
of failures and potential dangers.

We have constantly emphasized that the birth and development of

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CULTURE AND MYTH

symbolism always occurs under the control of organic drives. Man
becomes reasonable because his instrumental actions contain a strong
dynamic, that is, emotional, tone. The principles of knowledge are
always controlled by desire, by anticipation, and by hope. Their counter-
part, the apprehension of failure, is equally strongly charged with emo-
tions of fear, anxiety, or potential frustration. Man, even as his knowledge
increases, becomes more and more aware of the fact that his desire is
often thwarted, his expectations subject to chance, that there are always
grave, incalculable potential dangers lurking ahead.

Man experiences ill health and physical disability in his own life. He
sees kinsmen, friends, and neighbors removed by death or disabled by
disease. He often finds that the best laid plans are crossed and disorganized
by the unexpected intervention of chance and fate. Calamity or mis-
fortune affect the individual and disorganize the group.

What new integrative imperative could be assumed to arise under such
circumstances? The need arises from the conflict between hope — that is,
positive expectation — and anxiety, or anticipation of possible failure.
Any positive affirmations of success, stability, and continuity would satisfy
this need. Here again we can indicate psychological foundations for the
occurrence of such hopeful signs. A chance association, which might act
as prognostic or be interpreted as good augury, could be described as the
secondary symbolism of good omen. The normal reliance of the individual,
especially the infant, on the protection of the group, might provide the
prototype of the assumption of supernatural powers in those who are
older, stronger, and more famiHar with tradition. As regards death, the
assumption of its being but an imaginary event, whereas reality consists
in the survival of the soul, is brought near, not only by the natural
strength of the general impulses of "self-preservation," but also by the
collateral evidence of dreams, visions, and strong emotional memories.

Thus the dogmatic affirmations of religion and magic are brought near
to us simply as standardized natural reactions of the human organism
under conditions of conflict. The essence of much reUgious belief is the
affirmation of man's dependence on Providence; that is, on some powerful,
partly benevolent, partly dangerous principle pervading the universe. The
other equally important source of religious attitudes is the affirmation of
human immortality. Magic is, in its substance, the reinterpretation of the
secondary causation in terms of good as against bad. It is thus the ritual
production of favorable antecedents of luck and success.

Clearly, neither religion nor magic are mere dogmatic affirmations. Man
believes in order to act with greater confidence. He also has to enact his
behef. Accordingly to understand any magico-religious system, it is
necessary to study ritual as the enactment of dogmatic reality, and ethics
as the moral consequences of man's dependence upon supernatural powers.

This is not the place to enter into the details of the various religious

man's culture and man's behavior

215

systems from Totemism to Christianity, or to study minutely the varieties
of magic, sorcery, and witchcraft.^

We are here interested primarily in the definition of knowledge, reli-
gion, and magic, as integrative systems in culturally regulated behavior.
Let me briefly sum up the place of integrative imperatives within the
theory of the hierarchy of needs here developed. The biological need was
defined as the conditions imposed by the interaction of the human organ-
ism and environment upon behavior. These conditions determine the
permanent incorporation of refashioned vital sequences into every par-
ticular culture. These needs are definable in terms of biology, and we have
to put them on the map of anthropological studies insofar as they are
all invariably incorporated, and also to the degree that they impose defi-
nite limits upon human conduct. The concept of instrumental need
corresponds to the regular occurrence, and the permanent incorporation
in every culture, of those types of activity which we have defined as
economic, educational, legal, and political.

The concept of integrative need declares that in every culture coherent
systems of a symbolic nature are found. There exist fixed and standardized
texts, verbal or written. These texts are closely related with recurrent
organized performances. These texts also appear in the processes of
training the young and adolescent members; that is, the processes of
their incorporation into organized groups or institutions. The continuity
of culture, its transmission, and its maintenance depend upon the existence
of those residues of action, crystallized into symbolic texts, diagrams, or
inscriptions. The real functional identity of such symbolic systems is due
to their having been developed as a by-product of experience and action.
It may be the experience of training or the gradual adjustment of symbolic
instrumental ability and activity in cooperation. Once formed, symbols
can and have to be used, both in the context of the pragmatic situation
and outside it.

It is thus evident that what is usually described as tradition closely
corresponds to our concept of integrative imperatives. We have here
linked up this concept with the other determinants of human behavior,
and assigned it a definite place and function within the hierarchy of needs.
The integrative imperatives are clearly as stringent as the instrumental
ones. A lapse in knowledge and deterioration thereof would undermine
the techniques of production, as well as the organization of all productive
enterprise. The deterioration of belief and of ethics derived from it would
mean the gradual disorganization of groups, as well as the occurrence of
conflicts and disruptive forces. If knowledge, belief, and ethics were
progressively lowered in any culture, then individual initiative and respon-

^ The principles here developed will be found more fully documented in the little book
entitled The Foundations of Faith and Morals, Oxford University Press, 1936. [See Chapt.
15 of Sex, Culture, and Myth.]

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CULTURE AND MYTH

sibility, the social loyalties, and the organization of the institutions would
perforce disappear, and thus leave the organism exposed to starvation,
discomfort, and dangers. "We see clearly that all three classes of imperative
— basic, instrumental, and integrative — are linked, supplementary, and
equally stringent.

It may be profitable to supplement the previous two diagrams of vital
sequences, plain and instrumentally implemented, by diagrammatic rep-
resentations of cultural sequence in which there is no physiological link,
and the act itself is of a purely cultural nature. This obviously does not
mean that such cultural sequences are not related to basic needs. Such
a relationship invariably does exist. Yet, if we were to envisage a culture
in which specialization has reached the point where a large number of
people live exclusively by instrumental contributions, it would be seen
that a great many sequences of activities start with a motive and move
through an instrumental phase to a performance which has only a derived
or instrumental value. The individual satisfaction as well as the drive, in
such a case, are determined by the fact that achievements and contribu-
tions of this type receive an economic reward from their realization, by
which the individual can satisfy all his basic necessities. If we think of
the professional activities of a doctor or a lawyer or a clergyman, or of
the type of work done in a factory by the business members, overseers,
and workers, it would be found that it fits directly into our diagram of
culturally instrumental sequence.

Motive (economic interest) — Cultural setting of instrumental institution
— Act (professional service or contribution of labor) — Satisfaction (eco-
nomic and social reward)

Fig. 5. Culturally instrumental sequence

In this series we obviously have simplified matters. The motive often
includes elements of ambition, advancement, constructive interest. The
satisfaction is invariably in terms of economic reward, since no man can
work without maintenance. But it includes also the satisfaction of self-
regard, the admiration enjoyed by a good worker, a constructive engineer,
or creative scientist or artist. The middle links of our series mean that in
order to satisfy the motive for employment, the workman, the professional,
or the business man have to find some organized place of work. They can
perform their act of professional or labor service only in a consulting
room, business office, laboratory, workshop, or factory; in short, an insti-
tution. All such series of purely instrumental contributions obviously fit
into our concept of vital, instrumentally implemented sequence. They
are really part of the extremely complex instrumental phase, which, as
already noted, becomes in highly differentiated cultures a long chain of
hnked instrumental cooperation.

We could have sHghtly modified our present diagram in order to apply

man's culture and man's behavior

217

it to certain acts, mostly found in religion and art, in which the act
itself is not instrumental, but rather a direct satisfaction of spiritual
needs corresponding to the integrative type of interest. When a believer
repairs to a temple in order to participate in a sacramental act, a slight
reinterpretation of the series is necessary. The sacrament of communion
or of confession, like the enjoyment of a symphony or a theatrical per-
formance, is to the believer or the artistically hungry man of culture an
end in itself. To a certain extent, the concept of function breaks down
in its instrumental character when some of the most highly derived
spiritual needs of human beings are considered. The satisfaction felt by
the mystic in complete union with Divinity, as also the satisfaction ex-
perienced by the composer or by the musical fanatic when he listens to
the symphony, may be related in some ways to the general integration of
culture. They have certain indirect influences on cohesion, solidarity, and
unity of the group. The other aspect, however, their self-contained
character of an end in itself, has to be put on record as well. This argu-
ment, as previously, can be set forth in a diagram.

Motive {religions or artistic) — Cultural setting — Act {communion with
the Supernatural; artistic experience) — Satisfaction {m.ystical ecstasy or
artistic pleasure)

Fig. 6. Cultural sequence of direct spiritual satisfaction

The organized systems of human behavior

In our analysis we certainly have not thrown overboard considerations
of individual psychology or organic physiology. At the same time we
were constantly faced by the fact of human organization. The cultural
fact starts when an individual interest becomes transformed into public,
common, and transferable systems of organized endeavor. It will be
necessary to define the nature of such systems.

In the principle of prepared opportunities, previously discussed, it was
evident that man never has to seek for the satisfaction of any of his
needs, bodily, instrumental or spiritual; they are awaiting him, stored
and prepared. We spoke of the two streams of requirement and satisfac-
tion flowing parallel. Man finds his food, his shelter, the remedies for ill
health, the redress of injuries, and spiritual comforts in definite places
and within organized groups. Those are the home, the workshop, the
hostelry, the school, the hospital, or the church. We shall describe such
standardized systems of cooperation, as well as their material embodiment
and the groups running them, by the term institution.

This reality was encountered in our analysis of the instrumental phase
of a sequence. It was stated that such a phase was always the integral
part of a larger unit of organization. Fire-making, as an instrumental
phase, can happen at home and for the household, or during an organized

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CULTURE AND MYTH

enterprise, or else ritually, in a temple. Stone implements are produced to
build a house or to pound the raw material of food or to engage in some
organized agricultural work.

At a much higher level, we can see that no individual initiative is ever
culturally relevant unless incorporated into an institution. The man who
conceives a new scientific idea has to present it before an academy, publish
it, teach it at a school, and compel its recognition by the organized
profession before it becomes an accepted part of science. The inventor
has to take out a patent, and thus obtain a charter. He has to organize
the group of engineers and workmen, to finance them, and thus to im-
plement the production of his practical device. He then has to find the
market of consumers by creating new wants or redirecting old ones,
and make the productive activity of his organization perform a function
in satisfying a need.

In the analysis of the concrete structure of the instrumental phase of
behavior, it was shown that it always consists in the concurrence of
artifacts, organization of the personnel, norms of conduct, and a symbolic
factor which functions in the establishment of that phase and in its co-
ordination. From this we can proceed to a fuller definition of the concept
of organized activities or institutions.

It is clear that the essence of organization implies prima facie three
factors: a group of people engaged in the common performance of a
task. These people must be equipped with instruments and have a definite
environmental basis for their activity. We know also that in technique,
law, and ethics, rules are the essence of human organization. As shown
above, however, human groups do not organize for nothing. They have a
purpose in common, they pursue an end, and thus they are bound together
by a charter defining the purpose of their collaboration and its value.
Right through our analysis it is evident that humanity, primitive and
civilized ahke, engages in work not only under the impulse of motives,
but also towards the satisfaction of their real needs. This we have called
function.

The function of an institution is the effect which it produces in the
satisfaction of human needs. To the three concepts of personnel, norms,
and material apparatus, we must add those of charter and function.
Figure 7 summarizes this argument in associating the several co-effective

CHARTER
PERSONNEL NORMS
MATERIAL APPARATUS
ACTIVITIES
FUNCTION

Fig. 7. Outline of an institution

man's culture and man's behavior

219

factors of human organization. It can be read as follows: human beings
organize under a charter that defines their common aims and that also
determines the personnel and the norms of conduct of the group. Apply-
ing these norms and with the use of the material apparatus, the members
engage in activities, through which they contribute towards the integral
function of the institution.

Let us briefly define the concepts used in our institutional analysis.
The charter is the system of values for the pursuit of which the group
have organized. It may consist simply of a legal document, or, in the
case of traditional institutions, it may be based on history, legend, or
mythology. The personnel of an institution is the group organized on
definite principles of authority and division of work and distribution
of privilege and duty. The rules or norms consist, as we know, in all the
acquired skills, habits, legal norms, and ethical commands. The distinc-
tion here made between norms and activities is justified. The norms rep-
resent the ideal standard of behavior, the activities their actual realiza-
tions. The distinction between charter and norms is based on the more
fundamental character of the former. It defines the constitution of the
group, its value and purpose for the members, as well as the command,
permission, or acquiescence of the community at large.

The diagram would be as useful in ethnographic field work as in com-
parative studies where it supplies the common measure of comparison. It
is related to our previous analysis in that the entries personnel, norms,
material apparatus correspond to the instrumental phases of culture. The
charter, as well as the verbal prescriptions referring to the norms, belong
to the integrative class in our hierarchy of imperatives. The function is
related to the theory of hierarchical needs in general.

The importance of the concept of institution as the legitimate concrete
isolate of cultural analysis is seen also through the fact that we can draw
up a list of the main types of institutions valid for all cultures. At first
sight such a list does not look impressive, in that it appears entirely
common sense. In reality it supplies the student with one of the most
valuable proofs that universal laws of structure and process can be
established in his field. The main types of institutional organization can
be listed briefly under the following headings:

1. Family and derived kinship organizations
(Extended family; kindred groups; clan)

2. Municipality

(Local group; horde; village; township; city)

3. Tribe as the political organization based on territorial principle
(Primitive tribe; polis; state; state-nation; empire)

4. Tribe as the culturally integrated unit
(Primitive homogeneous tribe; nation)

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CULTURE AND MYTH

5. Age-group

(Age- grades; age hierarchies; professional age distinctions)

6. Voluntary associations

(Primitive: secret societies and chtbs; advanced: benevolent, political,
and ideological societies)

7. Occupational groups

(Primitive: magical organizations; economic teams; artisan guilds;
professional associations; religious congregations)

8. Status groups based on the principle of rank, caste, and economic class

The analysis of this list would obviously require a textbook of cultural
anthropology in full comment. Here I only want to point out that an
institution like the family may change considerably from one culture to
another. It is possible, nevertheless, to give a minimum definition that
would serve in any comparative study as a common measure and for any
type of ethnographic or sociological field work as a general guide. The
family is the group consisting of husband and wife, parents and children.
It is based on the charter of marriage contract, concluded on the founda-
tion of the marriage law and religious sanctity of this bond as it is con-
cretely formulated in each particular culture. This contract implies not
only the definition of the relation between the consorts; it also determines
the legitimacy and the status of the children.

The combination of the law of marriage and the law of kinship
prevalent in any culture constitutes the minimum definition of the
family. It is obvious that the family fulfils several functions: reproduc-
tive, educational, economic, legal, and often also religious and magical.
Nevertheless, it is clear that the main function of the family is the
culturally redefined production not merely of human infants, but the
supply of young citizens of the tribe. The economic appurtenances, the
legal prerogatives, the definition of authority and distribution of au-
thority are all contingent on the main function. We can, therefore, define
this briefly as the transformation of biological reproduction into cul-
turally defined continuity of the group. We could supply analogous
definitions in terms of charter and function of all the other entries in
our table. This example must suffice. It shows that in each case we can
define the integral function of an institution, while it would also be pos-
sible to show that the aggregate working of the community as a whole,
that is, its culture, is carried along by the combined activity of all the
institutions. These problems, however, refer already to the detailed and
specialized province of social anthropology, and cannot be more fully
developed here.

man's culture and man's behavior

221

Conclusions

An attempt has been made in the present discussion to define cultural
determinism; the influence of man's culture on man's behavior. We have
seen that human beings act within the framework of institutional or-
ganization, and that the determinants of their activities can be defined
in terms of what was described here as the hierarchy of needs. Our
analysis of the various needs and, particularly, their relations proves that
although cultural determinism supplies all the final motives of behavior,
culture, in turn, is determined all along the line. We were not driven
into the assumption of such concepts as cultural relativism, nor is it
necessary to resort to research for specific tribal or racial geniuses or
entities. It is evident that the driving forces of all behavior are biologically
conditioned. The indirect instrumental satisfaction through culture
engenders new needs of an instrumental and symbolic character. As shown,
however, both the instrumentalities and the symbolic systems, again,
submit to certain general principles which we were able to formulate.

Does this mean that we are denying here the diversity of cultural
phenomena as encountered in various types of environment, at various
levels of evolution, and even within nearly related cultures? By no
means. The stress which was laid here on the uniformity is due primarily
to the fact that we are here concerned with methods of approach, with
common measures of comparison, and with instruments of research. These
had to be built upon elements which are constant, recurrent, and which,
therefore, lead to generalizations of universal validity.

The very concept of function, which was dominant throughout our
analysis, however, opens the way for the introduction of variety and
differentiation, as well as for the assertion that there is a common measure
in this variety. In a fuller descriptive statement of what anthropology
teaches about human nature, such differential characteristics would
obviously have to be introduced. Some of them would undoubtedly
lead us back to the differential influences of environment. We would
find that the very basic needs have to be satisfied differentially in a
desert, in an Arctic environment, in a tropical jungle, or a fertile plain,
respectively. Other divergencies are accounted for by the level of develop-
ment. Over and above such distinctions, we have to register fully and
clearly that there occur in human cultures strange hypertrophies of
custom, specific types of value, or else dominant interests in one or the
other of the instrumental imperatives. In some cases they can be ac-
counted for by a gradual integration of accidental events which gave to
the development of a culture a specific twist. In such cases we could say
that an historic explanation of such a hypertrophied economic institution
as the Melanesian kula or the northwestern American potlatch can be
given. In many cases the anthropologist, following the famous student of

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CULTURE AND MYTH

physics, has to admit simply and honestly his ignorance: Ignoramus
ignorabimus.

As in all other studies, however, it is first necessary to establish the
basis of research in formulating the universal principles of cultural analy-
ses and thus providing a thoroughgoing classification of facts. On this
basis it is then easier and more profitable to discuss the minor or partial
problems of the subject matter: the deviations and the regional character-
istics of cultures.

REFERENCES

Physiology and Psychology

Cannon, W, B., Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage, D. Appleton &

Co., 1929; The Wisdom of the Body, Morrow, 1932.
Ford, C. S., "Society, Culture, and the Human Organism," Jour. Gen. Psych.,

1939 (Vol. XX), pp. 13 5-79.
Hull, C. L., Principles of Behavior, in preparation [published in 1943].
McDougall, W., An Introduction to Social Psychology, 1st ed., 1908.
Murray, H. A., Explorations in Personality, New York, 193 8.
Richter, C. P., "Animal Behavior and Internal Drives," Quart. Rev. of Biol.,

1927 (Vol. II), pp. 307-43.
Young, P. T., Motivation of Behavior, Wiley, 1936.

Anthropology and Sociology

Hertzler, J. O., Social Institutions, McGraw-Hill, 1929.

Linton, R., The Study of Man, Appleton-Century, 1936.

Lowie, R. H., History of Ethnological Theory, Farrar and Rinehart, 1937.

Malinowski, B., "Magic, Science and Religion," in Science, Religion and Reality,
ed. by J. Needham, London, 1926.

Malinowski, B., "Anthropology," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 13th Edit., 1926;
"Social Anthropology," Encyclopedia Britannica, 14th Edit., 1929; "Cul-
ture," Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, 1931 (Vol. IV) ; "Anthropology
as Basis of Social Science," in Human Affairs, ed. by R. B. Cattell, 1937;
The Foundations of Faith and Morals, Oxford Univ. Press, 193 8 [see Chapt.
16]; "The Group and the Individual in Functional Analysis," Amer. four.
Social, 19}9 (Vol. XLIV), pp. 938-964; "The Scientific Basis of Applied
Anthropology," Trans. VIII Volta Congress, Roma, Reale Accademia d'ltalia,
1940.

Miller, N. E., and Dollard, J., Social Learning and Imitation, Yale Univ. Press,

New Haven, 1941.
Murdock, G. P., Our Primitive Contemporaries, Macmillan, 1934.
Panunzio, C, Major Social Institutions, Macmillan, 1939.
Sumner, W. G., Folkways, Ginn & Co., 1906.

Sumner, W. G., and Keller, A. G., Science of Society, Yale Univ. Press, 1927-28.

llilllll 9 llllllililililllil

THE GROUP AND THE INDIVIDUAL
IN FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS

Personality, organization, and culture

It might seem axiomatic that in any sociological approach the individual,
the group, and their relations must remain the constant theme of all
observations and argument. The group, after all, is but the assemblage of
individuals and must be thus defined — unless we fall into the fallacy of
"group mind,'* "collective sensorium," or the gigantic "Moral Being"
which thinks out and improvises all collective events. Nor can such
conceptions as individual, personality, self, or mind be described except
in terms of membership in a group or groups — unless again we wish to
hug the figment of the individual as a detached, self-contained entity. We
can, therefore, lay down as an axiom — or better, as an empirical truth
— that in field work and theory, in observation and analysis, the leitmotiv
"individual, group, and their mutual dependence" will run through all
the inquiries.

But the exact determination of what we mean by "individual," or
how he is related to his "group," the final understanding of the terms
"social organization" or "cultural determinism" presents a number of
problems to be discussed. I would like to add that over and above indi-
vidual mental processes and forms of social organization it is necessary to
introduce another factor, which together with the previous ones makes
up the totality of cultural processes and phenomena. I mean the material
apparatus which is indispensable both for the understanding of how a
culturally determined individual comes into being and, also, how he co-
operates in group life with other individuals.

In what follows I shall discuss some of these questions from the

This article appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, May 1939 (Vol.
XLJy, No. 6)y pp. 93 8-64.

224

CULTURE AND MYTH

anthropological point of view. Most of my scientific experiences in cul-
ture are derived from work in the field. As an anthropologist I am
interested in primitive as well as in developed cultures. The functional
approach, moreover, considers the totaHty of cultural phenomena as the
necessary background both of the analysis of man and that of society.
Indeed, since in my opinion the relation between individual and group is
a universal motive in all problems of sociology and comparative anthro-
pology, a brief survey of the functional theory of culture, with a special
emphasis on our specific problem, will be the best method of presentation.

Functionalism differs from other sociological theories more definitely,
perhaps, in its conception and definition of the individual than in any
other respect.^ The functionalist includes in his analysis not merely the
emotional as well as the intellectual side of mental processes, but also
insists that man in his full biological reahty has to be drawn into our
analysis of culture. The bodily needs and environmental influences, and
the cultural reactions to them, have thus to be studied side by side.

The field worker observes human beings acting within an environ-
mental setting, natural and artificial; influenced by it, and in turn trans-
forming it in co-operation with each other. He studies how men and
women are motivated in their mutual relations by feelings of attraction
and repulsion, by co-operative duties and privileges, by profits drawn and
sacrifices made. The invisible network of social bonds, of which the
organization of the group is made up, is defined by charters and codes —
technological, legal, customary, and moral — to which every individual is
differentially submitted, and which integrate the group into a whole.
Since all rules and all tribal tradition are expressions in words — that is,
symbols — the understanding of social organization implies an analysis of
symbolism and language. Empirically speaking the field worker has to
collect texts, statements, and opinions, side by side with the observation
of behavior and the study of material culture.

In this brief preamble we have already insisted that the individual
must be studied as a biological reaUty. We have indicated that the physical
world must be part of our analysis, both as the natural milieu and as the

^ When I speak of "functionalism" here I mean the brand which I have produced and
am cultivating myself. My friend, Professor R. H. Lov^^ie of Berkeley, has in his last
book, The History of Ethnological Theory (1937), introduced the distinction between
"pure" and "tempered" functionalism — my brand being the pure one. Usually Professor
Radcliffe-Brown's name is linked with mine as a representative of the functional school.
Here the distinction between "plain" and "hyphenated" functionalism might be intro-
duced. Professor Lowie has, in my opinion, completely misunderstood the essence of
"pure" functionalism. The substance of this article may serve as a corrective. Professor
Radcliffe-Brown is, as far as I can see, still developing and deepening the views of the
French sociological school. He thus has to neglect the individual and disregard biology.
In this article functionalism "plain and pure" will be briefly oudined with special
reference to the problem of the group and the individual.

THE GROUP AND THE INDIVIDUAL IN FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS 225

body of tools and commodities produced by man. We have pointed out
that individuals never cope with, or move within, their environment in
isolation, but in organized groups, and that organization is expressed in
traditional charters, which are symbolic in essence.

The individual organism under conditions of culture

Taking man as a biological entity it is clear that certain minima of condi-
tions can be laid down which are indispensable to the personal welfare of
the individual and to the continuation of the group. All human beings
have to be nourished, they have to reproduce, and they require the
maintenance of certain physical conditions: ventilation, temperature
within a definite range, a sheltered and dry place to rest, and safety from
the hostile forces of nature, of animals, and of man. The physiological
working of each individual organism implies the intake of food and of
oxygen, occasional movement, and relaxation in sleep and recreation. The
process of growth in man necessitates protection and guidance in its
early stages and, later on, specific training.

We have listed here some of the essential conditions to which cultural
activity, whether individual or collective, has instrumentally to con-
form. It is well to recall that these are only minimum conditions — the
very manner in which they are satisfied in culture imposes certain ad-
ditional requirements. These constitute new needs, which in turn have
to be satisfied. The primary — that is, the biological — wants of the
human organism are not satisfied naturally by direct contact of the indi-
vidual organism with the physical environment. Not only does the indi-
vidual depend on the group in whatever he achieves and whatever he
obtains, but the group and all its individual members depend on the
development of a material outfit, which in its essence is an addition to
the human anatomy, and which entails corresponding modifications of
human physiology.

In order to present our argument in a synoptic manner, let us con-
cisely list in Column A of the table on page 226 the basic needs of the
individual. Thus "Nutrition (metabolism)" indicates not only the need
for a supply of food and of oxygen, but also the conditions under which
food can be prepared, eaten, digested, and the sanitary arrangements
which this implies. "Reproduction" obviously means that the sexual
urges of man and woman have to be satisfied, and the continuity of the
group maintained. The entry "Bodily comforts" indicates that the
human organism can be active and effective only within certain ranges
of temperature; that it must be sheltered from dampness and drafts; that
it must be given opportunities for rest and sleep. "Safety" again refers to
all the dangers lurking in the natural environment, both for civiUzed and
primitive: earthquakes and tidal waves, snowstorms and excessive insola-
tion; it also indicates the need of protection from dangerous animals and

22G

CULTURE AND MYTH

human foes. "Relaxation" implies the need of the human organism for a
rhythm of work by day and sleep at night, of intensive bodily exercise
and rest, of seasons of recreation alternating with periods of practical
activity. The entry "Movement" declares that human beings must have
regular exercise of muscles and nervous system. "Growth" indicates the
fact that the development of the human organism is culturally directed
and redefined from infancy into ripe age.

SYNOPTIC SURVEY OF BIOLOGICAL AND DERIVED NEEDS
AND THEIR SATISFACTION IN CULTURE

Basic needs

Direct responses

Instrumental

Responses

Symbolic and

Systems oi
thought

{individual)

{organized ,

needs

to instrumental

integrative

and

i.e., collective)

needs

faith

Nutrition

Commissariat

Renewal of

Economics

Transmission

Knowledge

(metabo-

cultural

of experience

lism)

apparatus

by means of
precise, con-
sistent princi-
ples

Reproduction

Marriage and
family

Bodily

Domicile

Charters of

Social

comforts

and dress

behavior
and their
sanctions

control

Safety

Protection
and defense

Means of intel-
lectual, emo-
tional, and
pragmatic
coniroi or
destiny and
chance

Magic
Religion

Relaxation

Systems of
play and
repose

Renewal of
personnel

Education

Movement

Set activities
and sys-
tems of
communi-
cation

Growth

Training and

Organization

Political

Communal

Art

apprentice-

of force

organi-

rhythm of

Sports

ship

and com-
pulsion

zation

recreation,
exercise, and
rest

Games
Ceremonial

It is clear that the understanding of any one of these entries of Column
A brings us down immediately to the analysis of the individual organism.

THE GROUP AND THE INDIVIDUAL IN FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS 227

We see that any lack of satisfaction in any one of the basic needs must
necessarily imply at least temporary maladjustment. In more pronounced
forms, nonsatisfaction entails ill-health and decay through malnutrition,
exposure to heat or cold, to sun or moisture; or destruction by natural
forces, animals, or man. Psychologically the basic needs are expressed in
drives, desires, or emotions, which move the organism to the satisfaction
of each need through systems or linked reflexes.

The science of culture, however, is concerned not with the raw material
of anatomical and physiological endowment in the individual, but with
the manner in which this endowment is modified by social influences.
When we inquire how the bodily needs are satisfied under conditions of
culture, we find the systems of direct response to bodily needs which are
listed in Column B. And here we can see at once the complete depend-
ence of the individual upon the group: each of these cultural responses is
dependent upon organized collective activities, which are carried on
according to a traditional scheme, and in which human beings not merely
co-operate with one another but continue the achievements, inventions,
devices, and theories inherited from previous generations.

In matters of nutrition, the individual human being does not act in
isolation; nor does he behave in terms of mere anatomy and unadulterated
physiology; we have to deal, instead, with personality, culturally molded.
Appetite or even hunger is determined by the social milieu. Nowhere and
never will man, however primitive, feed on the fruits of his environment.
He always selects and rejects, produces and prepares. He does not depend
on the physiological rhythm of hunger and satiety alone; his digestive
processes are timed and trained by the daily routine of his tribe, nation,
or class. He eats at definite times, and he goes for his food to his table.
The table is supplied from the kitchen, the kitchen from the larder, and
this again is replenished from the market or from the tribal food-supply
system.

The symbolic expressions here used — "table," "kitchen," etc. — refer to
the various phases of the process which separates the requirements of the
organism from the natural sources of food supply, and which is listed in
Column B as "Commissariat." They indicate that at each stage man
depends on the group — family, club, or fraternity. And here again we use
these expressions in a sense embracing primitive as well as civilized insti-
tutions, concerned with the production, preparation, and consumption
of nourishment. The raw material of individual physiology is found every-
where refashioned by cultural and social determinism. The group has
molded the individual in matters of taste, of tribal taboos, of the nutritive
and symbolic value of food, as well as in the manners and modes of
commensahsm. Above all, the group, through economic co-operation,
provides the stream of food supply.

One general point which we will have to make throughout our analysis

228

CULTURE AND MYTH

is that the relation is not of the individual to society or the group. Even
in matters of commissariat a number of groups make their appearance. In
the most primitive society we would have the organization of food-
gatherers, some institutions through which the distribution and apportion-
ment of food takes place, and the commensal group of consumers — as a
rule, the family. And were we to analyze each of these groups from the
point of view of nutrition, we would find that the place of the individual
in each of them is determined by the differentiation as to skill, abiUty,
interest, and appetite.

When we come to the cultural satisfaction of the individual impulses
and emotions of sex and of the collective need for reproduction, we would
see that human beings do not reproduce by nature alone. The full satis-
faction of the impulse, as well as the socially legitimate effect of it, is
subject to a whole set of rules defining courtship and marriage, prenuptial
and extra-connubial intercourse, as well as the life within the family
(Col. B, ''Marriage and family"). The individual brings to this, obviously,
his or her anatomical equipment, and the corresponding physiological
impulses. He also contributes the capacity to develop tastes and interests,
emotional attitudes and sentiments. Yet in all this the group not only
imposes barriers and presents opportunities, suggests ideals and restric-
tions, and dictates values, but the community as a whole, through its
system of legal rules, ethical and religious principles, and such concepts
as honor, virtue, and sin, affects even the physiological attitude of man to
woman. Take the most elementary physical impulse, such as the attrac-
tion of one sex by another. The very estimate of beauty and the apprecia-
tion of the bodily shape is modified by traditional reshaping: lip plugs and
nose sticks, scarification and tattooing, the deformation of feet, breasts,
waist, and head, and even of the organs of reproduction. In courtship and
in selection for marriage such factors as rank, wealth, and economic
efficiency enter into the estimate of the integral desirability and value of
one mate for the other. And again the fullest expression of the impulse
in the desire for children is affected by the systems of legal principle,
economic interest, and religious ideology, which profoundly modify the
innate substratum of human physiology.

Enough has been said to point out that here once more any empirical
study of the reproductive process in a given culture must consider both
the individual, the group, and the material apparatus of culture. The indi-
vidual, in this most personal and subjective concern of human life, is
submitted to the influence of tradition which penetrates right down to
the processes of internal secretion and physiological response. The selec-
tive business of choice and of mating are constantly directed and influ-
enced by the social setting. The most important stages (i.e., marriage and
parenthood) have to receive a social hallmark in the contract of marriage.
The legitimacy of the fruits of their bodily union depends upon whether

THE GROUP AND THE INDIVIDUAL IN FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS 229

they have conformed or not to the systems evolved in the community by
traditional dictates.

Yet here once more we do not deal with the group and the individual,
but we would have to consider a whole set of human agglomerations: the
group of the two principal actors (i.e., marriage), the prospective family,
the already developed families of each mate, the local community, and
the tribe as the bearer of law, tradition, and their enforcement.

We must survey the other items of Column B more rapidly. The
whole cultural system which corresponds to the necessity of keeping the
human organism within certain limits of temperature, to the necessity of
protecting it from the various inclemencies of wind and weather, ob-
viously implies also the parallel consideration of individual and group. In
constructing and maintaining even the simplest habitation, in the keep-
ing of the fire alive, in the upkeep of roads and communications, the
individual alone is not enough. He has to be trained for each task in
technological and co-operative abilities, and he has to work in conjunc-
tion with others.

From the biological point of view the group acts as an indispensable
medium for the realization of individual bodily needs. The organism
within each culture is trained to accommodate and harden to certain
conditions which might prove dangerous or even fatal without this
training.

Here, therefore, we have again the two elements: the molding or condi-
tioning of the human anatomy and physiology by collective influences
and cultural apparatus, and the production of this apparatus through
co-operative activities. Safety is achieved by organized defense, precau-
tionary measures, and calculations based on tribal knowledge and foresight.

The development of the muscular system and the provision of move-
ment are again provided for by the training of the individual organism
and by the collective production of means of communication, of vehicles
of transport, and of technical rules which define their use. The physical
growth as guided by the influence of the group on the individual shows
directly the dependence of the organism upon his social milieu. It is also
a contribution of the individual to the community in that it supplies in
each case an adequate member of one or several social units.

The instrumental imperatives of culture

In glancing at our chart and comparing Columns A and B, we recognize
that the first represents the biological needs of the individual organism
which must be satisfied in every culture. Column B describes briefly the
cultural responses to each of these needs. Culture thus appears first and
foremost as a vast instrumental reality — the body of implements and
commodities, charters of social organization, ideas and customs, beliefs and
values — all of which allow man to satisfy his biological requirements

230

CULTURE AND MYTH

through co-operation and within an environment refashioned and read-
justed. The human organism, however, itself becomes modified in the
process and readjusted to the type of situation provided by culture. In
this sense culture is also a vast conditioning apparatus, which through
training, the imparting of skills, the teaching of morals, and the develop-
ment of tastes amalgamates the raw material of human physiology and
anatomy with external elements, and through this supplements the
bodily equipment and conditions the physiological processes. Culture thus
produces individuals whose behavior cannot be understood by the study
of anatomy and physiology alone, but has to be studied through the
analysis of cultural determinism — that is, the processes of conditioning
and molding. At the same time we see that from the very outset the
existence of groups — that is, of individuals organized for co-operation and
cultural give and take — is made indispensable by culture.

But this first approach still remains chaotic and incomplete. On the
one hand it is easy to see that certain fundamental types of human group-
ing, such as family, village community, the politically organized tribe, or
the modern state, appear almost everywhere in Column B. The family is
not merely the reproductive group, it is also almost invariably a unit
playing the more or less dominant part in the commissariat. It is as-
sociated with the domicile and often with the production of clothing and
other means of bodily protection (Col. B, "Domicile and dress"). The
tribe or state which is primarily associated with protection and defense
is also the group which takes cognizance of marriage law and family
organization, which has its collective financial systems, and which at
times organizes nutritive exploits on a large scale. Nor could we eliminate
the role of the village community from any of the items listed in Column
B, for this also functions at times as a food-producing group, or at least
plays some part in the commissariat. It is an assemblage of households or
tents providing the social setting for courtship and communal recrea-
tions. Thus a further analysis of the integrated responses hsted in Column
B appears inevitable from the point of view of the organization into
concrete units of collective activity — that is, institutions.

Our list is also incomplete in so far as certain institutions have not yet
been Hsted. The church, for instance, to which in primitive communities
there may correspond a totemic clan or a kinship group worshiping a
common ancestor, is not yet on the map. Institutions corresponding to
rank and hierarchy, to occupation, and to free association into groups,
secret societies, and charitable insurance groups, have not yet been con-
nected with any part of our argument.

Another element of confusion becomes apparent were we to cut short
our analysis at this stage: for certain types of activities— economic, edu-
cational, or normative — run right through every one of the cultural re-
sponses of Column B.

THE GROUP AND THE INDIVIDUAL IN FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS 231

Our further analysis thus branches off into a double line of argument.
We can, on the one hand, consider the organization of human activities
into certain concrete and, as we shall see, universal forms such as the
family, the clan, the tribe, the age-grade, the association (club, secret
society), the occupational group (professional or economic), or the
church, and the status group or hierarchy in rank, wealth, or power. We
have designated such organized groups, connected with definite purposeful
activities and invariably united by special reference to environment and
to the material apparatus which they wield, by the term "institution."

On the other hand, we can concentrate on the type and character of
the activity and define more fully the several aspects of culture, such as
economics, education, social control, knowledge, magic, and rehgion.

Let us start with a brief analysis of this second point. Man's anatomical
endowment — which obviously includes not only his muscular system and
his organs of digestion and reproduction, but also his brain — is an asset
which will be developed under any system of culture when the individual
is trained into a full tribesman or citizen of his community. The natural
endowment of man presents also, we have seen, a system of needs which
are, under culture, satisfied by organized and instrumentally adjusted
responses. The empirical corollary to our analysis of basic needs has been
that, under conditions of culture, the satisfaction of every organic need
is achieved in an indirect, complicated, roundabout manner. It is this vast
instrumentalism of human culture which has allowed man to master the
environment in a manner incomparably more effective than any animal
adaptation.

But every achievement and advantage demands its price to be paid. The
complex cultural satisfaction of the primary biological needs imposes upon
man new secondary or derived imperatives. In Column C of our table we
have briefly listed these new imperatives. It is clear that the use of tools
and implements, and the fact that man uses and destroys in the use — that
is, consumes — such goods as food produced and prepared, clothing, build-
ing materials, and means of transportation, implies the necessity of a
constant "renewal of the cultural apparatus.'*

Every cultural activity again is carried through co-operation. This
means that man has to obey rules of conduct: life in common, which is
essential to co-operation, means sacrifices and joint effort, the harnessing of
individual contributions and work to a common end, and the distribu-
tion of the results according to traditional claims. Life in close co-opera-
tion— that is, propinquity — offers temptations as regards sex and property.
Co-operation implies leadership, authority, and hierarchy, and these,
primitive or civilized, introduce the strain of competitive vanity and
rivalries in ambition. The rules of conduct which define duty and
privilege, harness concupiscences and jealousies, and lay down the charter
of family, municipality, tribe, and of every co-operative group, must

232

CULTURE AND MYTH

therefore not only be known in every society, but they must be sanc-
tioned— that is, provided with means of effective enforcement. Thus the
need for code and for effective sanction is another derived imperative
imposed on every organized group ("Charters of behavior and their sanc-
tions," Col. C) .

The m.embers of such groups have to be renewed even as the material
objects have to be replaced. Education in the widest sense — that is, the
development of the infant into a fully fledged member of his group — is a
type of activity which must exist in every culture and which must be
carried out specifically with reference to every type of organization ("The
renewal of personnel," Col. C) . The need for "Organization of force and
compulsion" (Col. C) is universal.

In Column D we find briefly listed the cultural systems to be found in
every human group as a response to the instrumental needs imposed by
the roundabout type of cultural satisfactions. Thus "Economics," that
is, systems of production, of distribution, and of consumption; organized
systems of "Social control"; "Education," that is, traditional means by
which the individual is brought up from infancy to tribal or national
status; and "Political organization" into municipality, tribe, or state are
universal aspects of every human society (cf. Col. D).

Let us look at our argument and at our table from the point of view of
anthropological field work or that of a sociological student in a modern
community — that is, from the angle of empirical observation. Our table
indicates that field research on primitive or developed communities will
have to be directed upon such aspects of culture as economics, legal
institutions, education, and the political organization of the unit. Our
inquiries will have to include a specific study of the individual, as well as
of the group within which he has to live and work.

It is clear that in economic matters the individual member of a culture
must acquire the necessary skills, learn how to work and produce, ap-
preciate the prevalent values, manage his wealth, and regulate his con-
sumption according to the established standard of living. Among primitive
peoples there will be in all this a considerable uniformity as regards all
individuals. In highly civilized communities, the diflPerentiation of labor
and of functions defines the place and the productive value of the indi-
vidual in society. On the other hand, the collective aspect — that is, the
organization of economics — is obviously one of the main factors in
defining the level of culture and in determining a great many factors of
social structure, hierarchy, rank, and status.

As regards social control, anthropological field work in primitive com-
munities has in my opinion missed two essential points. First of all, the
absence of clearly crystaUized legal institutions does not mean that
mechanisms of enforcement, effective sanctions, and at times complicated
systems by which obligations and rights are determined are absent. Codes,

THE GROUP AND THE INDIVIDUAL IN FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS 233

systems of litigation, and effective sanctions are invariably to be found as
a by-product of the action and reaction between individuals within every
organized group — that is, institution. The legal aspect is thus in primitive
societies a by-product of the influence of organization upon individual
psychology.

On the other hand, the study of the legal problem from the individual
point of view reveals to us that the submission to tribal order is always a
matter of long and effective training. In many primitive communities,
the respect for the rule and the command is not inculcated very early in
life — that is, parental authority is, as a rule, less rigidly and drastically
forced upon children among so-called savages than among civilized
peoples. At the same time there are certain tribal taboos, rules of personal
decency, and of domestic morality that are impressed not so much by
direct castigation as by the strong shock of ostracism and personal
indignation which the child receives from parents, siblings, and con-
temporaries. In many communities we find that the child passes through
a period of almost complete detachment from home, running around,
playing about, and engaging in early activities with his playmates and
contemporaries. In such activities strict teaching in tribal law is enforced
more directly and poignantly than in the parental home. The fact re-
mains that in every community the human being grows up into a law-
abiding member; and he is acquainted with the tribal code; and that,
through the variety of educational influences and considerations of self-
interest, reasonable give and take, and balance of sacrifices and advantages,
he follows the rulings of his traditional system of laws. Thus the study
of how obedience to rules is inculcated in the individual during his life-
history and the study of the mutualities of give and take within organized
life in institutions constitute the full field for observation and analysis of
the legal system in a primitive community. I would like to add that the
science of modern jurisprudence could become inspired by anthropology
in treating legal phenomena within the context of social life and in
conjunction with other norms of conduct.

As regards education, we need only point out that this is the very
process through which the total conditioning of the individual is ac-
complished, and that this always takes place within the organized groups
into which the individual enters. He is born into the family, which almost
invariably supplies his earliest and most important schooling in the earliest
exercise of bodily functions, in the learning of language, and in the
acquisition of the simplest manners of cleanliness, conduct, and polite
behavior. He then may, through a system of initiation, enter into a group
of adolescents, of young warriors, and then of mature tribesmen. In every
one of his technical and economic activities he passes through an appren-
ticeship in which he acquires the skills as well as the legal code of privilege
and obligation of his group.

234

CULTURE AND MYTH

The place of the individual in organized grotips

So far we have been speaking of the instrumental aspects of culture.
Their definition is essentially functional. Since in every community there
is the need for the renewal of the material apparatus of tools and imple-
ments and the production of goods of consumption, there must exist
organized economics at every level of development. All the influences
which transform the naked infant into a cultural personality have to be
studied and recorded as educational agencies and constitute the aspect
which we label "education." Since law and order have to be maintained,
there must be a code of rules, a means of their readjustment and re-estab-
hshment when broken or infringed. In every community there exists,
therefore, a juridical system. This functional approach is based on the
empirical summing-up of the theory of derived needs and their relation to
individual biology and cultural co-operation alike.

What is the relation between these functional aspects of culture and
the organized forms of activities which we have called ''institutions"?
The aspects define the type of activity; at the same time every one of
them is carried out by definite groups. Co-operation implies spatial con-
tiguity. Two human beings of different sex who are engaged in the busi-
ness of reproduction, and who have to rear, train, and provide for their
offspring cannot be separated by a great distance in space. The members
of the family are subject to the requirement of physical contiguity in
the narrow sense. They form a household, and, since the household needs
food, implies shelter, and the whole apparatus of domestic supply, it must
not only be a reproductive but also an economic as well as an educational
group united by the physical framework of habitation, utensils, and joint
wealth.

Thus we find that one of the universal institutions of mankind, the
family, is not merely a group of people thrown together into a common
nook and shelter of the environment, wielding conjointly the definite
apparatus of domicile, of material equipment, and a portion of productive
territory, but also bound by a charter of rules defining their mutual re-
lations, their activities, their rights, and their privileges. The charter of
the family, moreover, invariably defines the position of the offspring by
reference to the marriage contract of the parents. All the rules of legiti-
macy, of descent, of inheritance, and succession are contained in it.

The territorial principle of integration produces yet another group: the
village community, municipal unit, horde, or territorial section. People
unite into villages or migratory hordes, roaming together over a joint
territory — partly because there are many tasks for which the workers
have to unite; partly because they are the natural groups for immediate
defense against animals and marauders; partly also because daily contact
and co-operation develop the secondary bonds of acquaintance and affec-

THE GROUP AND THE INDIVIDUAL IN FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS 23 5

tion. And here also, apart from the territorial unity with its rules of
land tenure, corporate or individual, apart from the joint ownership of
certain instruments such as communal buildings, apart from the perma-
nent personnel of which such a group consists, we have also mythological,
legal, and legendary charters from which the sentiments that enter into
the bonds of membership are largely derived.

Another institution determined by the spatial principle and united
through it on a variety of functions is the widest territorial group, the
tribe. This unit as a rule is organized on the joint wielding of collective
defense and aggression. It presents, even in the most primitive forms, a
differentiation and hierarchy in administrative matters, in ceremonial
proceedings, and in military or legal leadership.

In many parts of the world political organization on the territorial
basis and cultural identity have to be distinguished. We have in our
modern world the minority problem; in primitive communities the symbio-
sis of two races or two culturally different communities under the same
political regime. Thus, identity of language, of custom, and of material
culture constitutes another principle of differentiation, integrating each
component part, and distinguishing it from the other.

We see, thus, that the actual concrete organization of human activities
does not follow slavishly or exclusively the functional principles of type
activities. This refers more specifically to primitive groups. As civilization
develops, we find that law, education, and economics tend more and more
to become separated from such forms of organization as the family, the
village, or the age-grade. They become institutionalized and bring into
being specialized professions, spatially set off, with constructions such as
factories, courts, and schools. But even in more primitive groups we find
that certain occupations each tend to become incorporated into a definite
organization. Such groups as magicians, shamans, potters, blacksmiths, or
herdsman fall into natural teams, receiving, at least on certain occasions,
a spatial unity — that is, specific rights to portions of the territory and to
a material outfit that they have to wield under a differential charter of
rules and traditional prerogatives. On occasions they work and act
together and in separation from the rest of the community.

The analysis into aspects and the analysis into institutions must be
carried out simultaneously, if we want to understand any culture com-
pletely. The study of such aspects as economics, education, or social
control and poHtical organization defines the type and level of the
characteristic activities in a culture. From the point of view of the indi-
vidual, the study of these aspects discloses to us the totality of motives,
interests, and values. From the point of view of the group it gives us an
insight into the whole process by which the individual is conditioned or
culturally formed and of the group mechanism of this process.

The analysis into institutions, on the other hand, is indispensable be-

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CULTURE AND MYTH

cause they give us the concrete picture of the social organization within
the culture. In each institution the individual obviously has to become
cognizant of its charter; he has to learn how to wield the technical
apparatus or that part of it with which his activities associate him; he
has to develop the social attitudes and personal sentiments in which the
bonds of organization consist.

Thus, in either of these analyses the twofold approach through the
study of the individual with his innate tendencies and their cultural
transformation, and the study of the group as the relationship and co-
ordination of individuals, with reference to space, environment, and ma-
terial equipment, is necessary.

The cultural definition of symbolism

One more addition, however, we shall have to make to our analysis.
Right through our arguments we have implied the transmission of rules,
the development of general principles of conduct and of technique, and
the existence of traditional systems of value and sentiment. This brings
us to one more component of human culture, symbolism, of which lan-
guage is the prototype. Symbolism must make its appearance with the
earliest appearance of human culture. It is in essence that modification
of the human organism which allows it to transform the physiological
drive into a cultural value.

Were we to start from the most tangible aspect of culture and try to
imagine the first discovery and use of an implement we would see that
this already implies the birth of symbolism. Any attempt to reconstruct
concretely and substantially the beginnings of culture must remain futile.
But we can analyze some of the cultural achievements of early man and
see what each of them implies in its essence.

Imagine the transition from subhuman to human management of any
environmental factor: the discovery of fire, the use of such a simple un-
fashioned implement as a stick or a stone. Obviously, the object thus used
becomes an effective element in culture only when it is permanently
incorporated into collective use, and the use is traditionally transmitted.
Thus the recognition of the principle of its utility was necessary, and
this principle had to be fixed so as to be communicable from one indi-
vidual to another and handed on to the next generation. This alone means
that culture could not originate without some element of social organiza-
tion— that is, of permanent relations between individuals and a continuity
of generations — for otherwise communication would not be possible. Co-
operation was born in the actual carrying-out of any complex task, such
as making fire and keeping it, and the use of fire for the preparation of
food, but co-operation was even more necessary in the sharing and trans-
mission even of the simplest principles of serviceability in production or
use.

THE GROUP AND THE INDIVIDUAL IN FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS 237

Incorporation and transmission implied one more element — the recogni-
tion of value. And it is here that we meet for the first time the mechanism
of symbolization. The recognition of value means that a deferred and
indirect mechanism for the satisfaction of an urge becomes the object of
emotional response. Whether we imagine that the earliest human beings
communicated by elementary sounds or by gesture and facial expression,
embodied and connected with manual and bodily activity, symbolism was
born with the first deferred and indirect satisfaction of any and every
bodily need.

The urges of hunger and sex, the desire for personal comfort and
security were refocused and transferred onto an object or a process which
was the indirect means to the end of satisfying a bodily need. This trans-
ference of physiological urge on the secondary reality was in its essence
symbolic. Any of the signs, gestures, or sounds which led to the definition
of an object, to the reproduction of a process, to the fixation of technique,
utility, and value were in essence as fully symbolic as a Chinese pictogram
or a letter in our alphabet. For symbolism from its very inception had to
be precise, in the sense that it provided a correct formula for the perma-
nent incorporation and transmission of the cultural achievement. It had
to be effective in that the drive of the physiological need was transferred
and permanently hitched upon the object, which adequately though
indirectly subserved the satisfaction of this drive. The sign, sound, or
material presentation, the cultural reality to which it referred, and the
bodily desire which was indirectly satisfied through it became thus inte-
grated into a unity through the process of conditioned reflex and con-
ditioned stimulus which has become the basis of our understanding of
habit, custom, and language through the researches of Pavlov and
Bechtyerev.

This analysis proves again that the most important and elementary
process — the creation of cultural symbolism and values — cannot be
understood without direct reference to individual psychology and physi-
ology. The formation of habits, skills, values, and symbols consists essen-
tially in the conditioning of the human organism to responses which are
determined not by nature but by culture.

On the other hand, the social setting is indispensable, because it is the
group which maintains and transmits the elements of symbolism, and it is
the group which trains each individual and develops in him the knowledge
of technique, the understanding of symbols, and the appreciation of
values. We have seen also that organizations — that is, the personal bonds
which relate the members of a group — are based on the psychology and
physiology of the individual, because they consist in emotional responses,
in the appreciation of mutual services, and in the apprenticeship to the
performance of specific tasks by each man within the setting of his group.

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CULTURE AND MYTH

The individual contributions and group activities
in knowledge and belief

The understanding of the symboHc process allows us to consider another
class of necessities imposed upon man by culture. Obviously, the member
of any group has to be able to communicate with his fellow-beings. But
this communication is never, not even in the highly differentiated groups
of today, a matter of detached, abstract transmission of thought. In
primitive communities, language is used even more exclusively for
pragmatic purposes. Early human beings used language and symbolism
primarily as a means of co-ordinating action or of standardizing tech-
niques and imparting prescriptions for industrial, social, and ritual
behavior.

Let us look more closely at some of these systems. To every type of
standardized technique there corresponds a system of knowledge embodied
in principles, which can be imparted to those who learn, and which help
to co-operate those who are already trained. Principles of human knowl-
edge based on true experience and on logical reasoning, and embodied in
verbal statements, exist even among the lowest primitives. The view that
primitive man has no rudiments of science, that he lives in a world of
mystical or magical ideas, is not correct. No culture, however simple,
could survive unless its techniques and devices, its weapons and economic
pursuits, were based on the sound appreciation of experience and on a
logical formulation of its principles. The very first human beings who
discovered and incorporated fire-making as a useful art had to appreciate
and define the material to be used, its conditions, as well as the technique
of friction and of fanning the spark in the tinder. The making of stone
implements, and even the selection of useful stones, implied a body of
descriptive rules which had to be communicated from one person to
another, both in co-operation and in transmission from those who had
the experience to those who had to acquire it. Thus we can hst in Column
E of our chart the necessity of general symbolic principles, which are
embodied as a rule not merely in verbal statements but in verbal state-
ments associated with the actual demonstration of technique and material,
of physical context, and of utility and value (Col. E, "Transmission of
experience by means of precise, consistent principles"). Thus knowledge,
or a body of abstract symbols and verbal principles containing the
capacity to appear as empirical fact and sound reasoning, is an implication
of all cultural behavior even in its earliest beginnings.

In Column F we thus list knowledge as one of the systems of symbolic
integration. By knowledge we mean the whole body of experience and of
principle embodied in language and action, in techniques and organized
pursuits — in food-gathering, with all it implies of natural history, in
agriculture, hunting and fishing, sailing and trekking. Knowledge also

THE GROUP AND THE INDIVIDUAL IN FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS 239

implies, at every stage of development, the familiarity with the rules of
co-operation and with all social obligations and privileges.

But once we realize that even the most primitive human beings devel-
oped systems of thought — that is, of foresight, of calculation, and of
systematic planning — we are led to another psychological necessity con-
nected with the cultural satisfaction of primary needs. The use of knowl-
edge not only shows man how to achieve certain ends, it also reveals to
him the fundamental uncertainties and limitations of his existence. The
very fact that man, however primitive, has to think clearly, has to look
ahead and also remember the successes and failures of his past experience
makes him realize that not every problem can be solved, not every desire
satisfied, by his own efforts.

From the point of view of individual psychology we see that reasonable
processes and emotional reactions intertwine. The very calculations, and
the fact that the principles of knowledge have to be built up into
systems of thought, subject man to fear as well as to hope. He knows
that his desire is often thwarted and that his expectations are subject to
chance.

It is enough to remember that all human beings are affected by ill-
health and have to face death ultimately, that misfortune and natural
catastrophes, and elements disturbing the favorable run. of food-providing
activities, always loom on man's mental horizon. The occurrence of such
acts of destiny engender not merely reflection, thought, and emotional
responses; they force the human group to take action. Plans have to be
reorganized whenever a natural catastrophe occurs. The group becomes
disintegrated by the death of one of its members, especially if he is a
leading individual. Calamity or misfortune thus affects the individual
personally, even as it disorganizes the group.

Which is the new, highly derived, yet emotionally founded need or
imperative which these considerations entail? We see that acting as he
always does within an atmosphere of uncertainty, with his hopes raised
and fears or anxieties aroused, man needs certain positive affirmations of
stability, success, and continuity. The dogmatic affirmations of religion
and magic satisfy these needs. Whether we take such early beliefs as
totemism, magic, or ancestor worship; or these beliefs more fully devel-
oped into the concept of providence, a pantheon of gods, or one divinity;
we see that man affirms his convictions that death is not real nor yet
final, that man is endowed with a j>ersonaHty wkich persists even after
death, and that there are forces in the environment which can be tuned
up and propitiated to the trend of human hopes and desires.

We can thus realize the dogmatic essence of reHgion by the analysis of
individual mental processes. But here also the group enters immediately
and no purely physiological or psychological analysis of the human or-
ganism is sufficient. In the first place, the reaction of man to death and

240

CULTURE AND MYTH

disaster cannot be understood merely in terms of his concern with himself.
It is the care for those who depend on him, and the sorrow for those to
whom he was attached and who disappear, that provide as much inspira-
tion to rehgious belief as does the self -centered concern for his own wel-
fare.

Religion, however, does not end or even begin with dogmatic affirma-
tions. It is a system of organized activities, in ritual as well as in ethics.
Behef at no stage, certainly not the primitive levels, is a mere metaphys-
ical system. It is a mode of ritual activity which allows man, whether
by constraint or persuasion, to manage the supernatural world brought
into being by his desires, hopes, fears, and anticipations. All ritual be-
havior, whether at burial and mourning, at commemorative ceremony and
sacrifice, or even in a magical performance, is social. It is social in the
sense that often men and women pray, worship, and chant their magic
formula in common. Even when a magical act is performed in solitude
and secrecy, it invariably has social consequences. Ritual is also social in
the sense that the end to be obtained, the integration of the group after
death, the conjuring-up of rain and fertility, of a rich haul in fishing, and
hunting, or of a successful sailing expedition, concerns the interests not
of a single person but of a group.

Even sorcery and black magic conform with the stipulations of our
argument. In the first place, sorcery, though carried out in secret,
produces powerful though negative social results. Again, sorcery is, in
correct functional interpretation, a primitive type of explaining and ac-
counting for ill-health and death. The whole system of magical counter-
action and cure, which is a regular counterpart of the belief in black
magic, is the manner in which primitive man satisfies his individual
cravings for some means of controlling a really uncontrollable evil.
Sociologically it brings about the mobilization of the group consisting of
the kinsmen, friends, and followers of the victim. Thus sorcery and the
magical means of combating it again satisfy certain psychological needs
and are accompanied by a sociological byplay of collective effort to deal
with the disaster.

In all this we see once more that a parallel consideration of individual
and organized group is indispensable in order to give us insight into the
foundations, as well as the forms, of magic and reUgion. The structure
of these cultural realities entails dogmatic thought — that is, positive
affirmations about the existence of good and evil, of benevolent and
hostile forces, residing in the environment and capable of influencing
some of its responses. Such dogmatic affirmations contain recipes as to
how the supernatural forces can be controlled through incantation and
prayer, through ritual, sacrifice, and collective or individual sacrament.

Since religion consists by and large of collective efforts to achieve ends
beneficent to one and all, we find that every religious system has also

THE GROUP AND THE INDIVIDUAL IN FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS 241

its ethical factors. Even in a magical ceremony, performed for a successful
war or sailing expedition, for the counteracting of sorcery, or for the
fertility of the fields, every participating individual and the leader of the
performance is carrying out a task in which he subordinates his personal
interest to the communal welfare. Such ceremonies carry with them also
taboos and restrictions, duties and obligations. The ethics of a magical
system consist in all these rules and restrictions to which the individual
has to submit in the interests of the group.

The duties of mourning and burial, of communal sacrifice to ancestor
ghosts or to totemic beings, also entail a number of rules, regulations,
and principles of conduct which constitute the ethical aspect of such a
ritual act. The structure of religion, therefore, consists in a dogmatic
system of affirmations, in the technique of ritual, and in the rules and
precepts of elementary ethics, which define the subordination of the indi-
vidual to group welfare.

If we had time more fully to analyze the source of tribal rhythm, of
emotional and bodily recreation, as well as their cultural satisfaction in
artistic creation, in sports, games, and tribal ceremonial, we would find
also that the need for any such cultural activity can only be understood
by reference to individual psychology and to the needs of the individual
organism. The type of satisfaction for each special need, however, implies
immediately the elements of tradition, organization, and material equip-
ment— that is, elements which cannot be discussed, still less understood,
without the analysis of group life and group organization.

The gist of the foregoing argument has been condensed in our chart by
the entry *'Means of intellectual, emotional, and pragmatic control of
destiny and chance" (Col. E), and in the corresponding entry of "Magic
and religion" (Col. F). Again, the need for a "Communal rhythm of
recreation, exercise, and rest" (Col. E) is satisfied by such cultural re-
sponses as "Art, sports, games, ceremonial" (Col. F).

Snmmary and conclusions

This brief outline of the functional approach to anthropological field
work and comparative theory of culture shows that at every step we had
to study, in a parallel and co-ordinated manner, the individual and the
group, as well as their relations. The understanding of both these entities,
however, must be supplemented by including the reality of environment
and material culture. The problem of the relation between group and
individual is so pervading and ubiquitous that it cannot be treated
detached from any question of culture and of social or psychological
process. A theory which does not present and include at every step the
definitions of individual contributions and of their integration into col-
lective action stands condemned. The fact that functionalism implies
this problem constantly and consistently may be taken as a proof that,

242

CULTURE AND MYTH

so far as it does, it does not neglect one of the most essential problems of
all social science.

Indeed, functionalism is, in its essence, the theory of transformation of
organic — that is, individual — needs into derived cultural necessities and
imperatives. Society by the collective wielding of the conditioning ap-
paratus molds the individual into a cultural personaHty. The individual,
with his physiological needs and psychological processes, is the ultimate
source and aim of all tradition, activities, and organized behavior.

The word **society" is used here in the sense of a co-ordinated set of
differentiated groups. The juxtaposition and opposition of "the indi-
vidual" and "the society," as an indifferentiated mass, is always fictitious
and therefore fallacious.

From the structural approach we have found that social organization
must always be analyzed into institutions — that is, definite groups of men
united by a charter, following rules of conduct, operating together a
shaped portion of the environment, and working for the satisfaction of
definite needs. This latter defines the function of an institution.

Here, once more, we see that every institution contributes, on the one
hand, toward the integral working of the community as a whole, but it
also satisfies the derived and basic needs of the individual. Thus the
family is indispensable to society in supplying its members, training them,
and safeguarding their early stages. At the same time to consider the role
of the family without reference to individuals in their sex drive, in their
personal affections, as between husband and wife, parents and children, or
to study the early stages of life-history of the individual outside the
domestic circle would be absurd. The local group, as the organization for
the joint use of an apportioned territory, as the means of collective
defense, and as the medium for the primary division of labor, works as a
part of society and as one of its indispensable organs. At the same time,
every one of the benefits just listed is enjoyed by every individual member.
His role and membership in that group have to be stated from the point
of view of psychology, education, and also of the physiological benefits
derived by each from the joint activities. The tribe and state carries out
a collective policy in war and peace, in conquest and intertribal or inter-
national trade; but the very existence of tribe or state depends on the
quality of citizenship, which is an individual fact and which consists in
the contributions toward, and the benefits derived from, the participation
of the individual in group life.

Were we to consider such institutionalized activities as those depend-
ent on age, which are organized into primitive age-grades or the age
hierarchies of our civil service, military organization, or professional
work, we would find again that the problem must be stated in terms both
of individual life-history and of age as a principle of social differentiation
and integration.

THE GROUP AND THE INDIVIDUAL IN FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS 243

In the genetic approach, the functionalist demands that, in field work
and theory alike, the formation of such collective aptitudes and formed
dispositions as taste, skill, principle, dogma, and value be stated in terms of
both individual and group. No mental attitude or bodily skill can be
understood without reference both to the innate individual and organic
endowment and to the cultural influences by which it is shaped.

We have, in this article, followed the gradual transformation of bio-
logical needs into cultural imperatives and satisfactions. We have seen
that, starting from the individual organism and its requirements, and
studying the cultural satisfaction thereof, we come upon instrumental
and integrative imperatives. In every culture there corresponds to these
such types of organized activities as economics, education, political or-
ganization, and legal system; and again organized rehgion and magic, as
well as artistic and recreational activities.

If space would allow we could show that, since every one of these
integrative pursuits is carried on by a group, whether this be family,
clan, or congregation; since dogma, mythology, and sacred history pro-
vide its charters; since every ritual implies a Uturgical apparatus; and
since the activities are integrated around a definite purpose or function,
the communion with the supernatural — we would find that the integra-
tive aspects of culture are again carried on in institutions, religious,
magical, artistic, ceremonial, and recreational. The church, the congre-
gation, the totemic clan, the magical or shamanistic corporations, as well
as sporting teams and organizations of musicians, dancers, and actors, are
examples of such institutions.

The individual, both in social theory and in the reality of cultural
life, is the starting-point and the end. The very beginning of human
civilization consists in acts of rudimentary mastery of implements, of
production of goods, and of the incorporation of special achievements
into a permanent tradition by means of symbolism. Society and its com-
ponent groups are the carriers of verbal — that is, symbolic — tradition, the
guardians of communal wealth, and the joint operators of the material
and spiritual achievements of a culture. But in all this the ultimate modi-
fying power, the creative inspiration, and all impulse and invention come
from the individual.

Culture remains sound and capable of further development only in so
far as a definite balance between individual interest and social control
can be maintained. If this balance be upset or wrongly poised, we have
at one end anarchy, and at the other brutal dictatorship. The present
world is threatened in its various parts and through different agencies
both with anarchy and with the brutal oppression in which the interests
of the state, managed by small gangs with dictatorial powers, are made
completely to overrule the elementary rights and interests of the indi-
vidual. The theoretical discussion of the relation between the individual

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CULTURE AND MYTH

and the group has thus in our present world not merely an academic but
also a deep philosophical and ethical significance. It cannot be too often re-
peated that any culture which kills individual initiative, and relegates
the interests of most of its members to complete insignificance at the
expense of a gang-managed totalitarian state, will not be able to develop
or even to preserve its cultural patrimony.

MYTH AS A DRAMATIC DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA

Walking through one of the suburbs of Innsbruck, the visitor might come
upon a church not yet quite finished in one of the side streets; it stands
in a backyard of a small suburban villa. Sometimes he might encounter
people carrying bricks and other building material; if as an amateur
ethnographer he were to stop and enquire, he would find that these are
not professional masons and bricklayers but pilgrims — peasants and towns-
people often coming from distant places who supply the material as
well as the devotion and faith necessary for the construction of a new
church. This is dedicated to St. Theresa and erected on a spot recently
become renowned for its miraculous properties. The miracle started with
a sensational event of no mean importance; its traditions, though recent,
have already grown into the dimensions of a minor myth. A woman gave
birth to twins: they came into the world practically still-born, the faith-
ful say they were already dead on arrival. The mother, a pious woman,
offered them to St. Theresa, prayed and made a vow that if they were
restored to life she would worship the saint in a little wash-house in her
backyard. The saint acceded to her vows and prayers, the twins lived,
grew and prospered; minor miracles followed the principal one. The
Church often indifferent and sometimes hostile to new-fangled miracles
took cognizance of this.^ The wash-house was transformed into a small

The typescript of this article is designated "Lecture V; however, there is no
indication in the records of when and where it might have been delivered. It
appears to be a draft of an incompleted address.

^ One has only to remember the case of Joan of Arc and the early hostility of the
Church to the claims of Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes. A few years ago the press
reported throughout the world an interesting case from Hungary where three saints
appeared to the faithful, drew large audiences and performed miracles. For some reasons
of its own the Catholic Church refused to associate its authority with these miracles.
The gendarmerie were summoned and finally the fire brigade were called and turned
their hose on the faithful. The fire of enthusiasm of the faithful, deemed inapt by State
and Church, was thus finally quenched.

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CULTURE AND MYTH

chapel: its miraculous properties became known, the services were attended
to overflowing, and finally a collection was made to build a large church.

This is a recent, well-attested and typical process by which among a
religious people, a new minor cult, a new rallying point for belief and a
new tradition spring up simultaneously. It is a close parallel to Lourdes,
Loretto, to Santiago de Compostela and to the innumerable shrines, altars
and places of miraculous power at which we Roman Catholics worship
God through his saints: we believe that on the very spot in connection
with a statue, a picture or a relic, miraculous grace can be attained.

Roman Catholicism does not stand alone. A visitor to Salt Lake City
will naturally inspect the Tabernacle and the row of houses in which
Brigham Young and his wives lived; he will admire the wonderful
energy, social organisation and moral strength which created a flourishing
community out of a desert. He would understand how a powerful religion
can create a vigorous community and lead to great works. A scrutiny of
the foundation of this faith sooner or later discloses the most interesting
myth which tells of how God revealed to Joseph Smith the foundation of
a new faith and a new social order. Again we have a new myth, a new
ritual, a new morality growing as it were out of one event simultaneously
and in close inter-relation. Whether we take Christian Science with its
sensational birth in a miraculous cure and revelation or the Society of
Friends with its almost complete denial of miracles, yet with its sacred
tradition of the Founder and his supremely ethical personality, we would
find everywhere that the works of religion and its beliefs must have
sacred tradition as its groundwork, and that the miraculous element
whether in a purely ethical or magical form must have precedence to be
believed.

All this seems common-sense enough to escape being seriously ques-
tioned. It may, in fact, appear so simple as to be hardly worth considera-
tion as an important scientific contribution to the comparative study of
human religion. And yet the impHcation of the simple truth that myth
must be studied in its social, ritual and ethical effects rather than as an
imaginative and pseudo-scientific tale has been almost completely dis-
regarded in the study of the subject. This I shall briefly show in the
following pages.

For the present let me just indicate that the ethnographer, working
among primitive people, will find everywhere similar conditions. Among
the Palaeolithic inhabitants of Central AustraUa all the elaborate ritual
of magic and religion is intimately bound up with the sacred body of
tradition which might almost be called the totemic gospels of these
people. Exactly as we carry out our ritual of baptism because of our
doctrine of original sin, and believe in this dogma because of what we
are told in the Book of Genesis, so they have to initiate their young in
order to make them full human beings. And their belief is born from

MYTH AS A DRAMATIC DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA

247

their primitive gospels where man was changed from an incomplete and
uncircumcised creature into full bodily and spiritual man by the will of a
benevolent totemic spirit. Among the Pueblo Indians, as we shall see, a
rich mythology dictates the belief that fertility can be obtained by
dramatic representation of ancestral doings, by a ritual appeal to those
forces of nature which once upon a time were revealed in a personified
form in great miraculous events of the past. In some parts of Melanesia
magic performs miracles to-day because it is a repetition of spells and
rites which once upon a time created the great miracles of the Golden
Age.

A sociological definition of myth

What is then the fact of a myth? Briefly, that all the principal tenets of
religious belief have a tendency to be spun out into concrete stories; in
the second place, these stories are never mere accounts of what happened
in the past. Every act of ritual, every artistic representation of religious
subjects, in the worship of relics and sacred places in short, in all the
visual signs of past sensational acts of grace every theme is revivified. The
events of the mythological past play also a leading part in moral conduct
and social organisation.

That myth is in a way a mere unfolding of dogma even a cursory
glance at any religion will show. The behef in immortality, the dogma of
individual survival, has given rise to the innumerable stories of how once
man was made to live for ever on earth, how through a mistake of a
supernatural messenger, or through his own sin, or through a mere
technical error, man lost his eternal life.^ The belief in Providence and
in the great architect of the universe is embodied in numberless mytho-
logical cosmologies. On the shores of the Pacific and on its many islands,
we are told how the world was fished out of the sea or moulded out of
slime; or again, from other continents, we have stories relating how out
of chaos the various parts of the universe have been shaped in succession,
or how the earth was hurled from space, or out of darkness, by a divine
maker. The wide range of beliefs which are usually labelled "nature wor-
ship" again have a rich mythology of totemic ancestors: of the early
appearance and miraculous, though not always moral, behavior of nature
gods, of the early contacts between man and his Guardian Spirit. In the
analysis which follows of Axistralian totemic mythology, of the tales and
sagas connected with Pueblo nature worship as well as the specimens of
Melanesian mythology, I supply full documentation of this statement.

Wisdom, like charity, ought to begin at home. The principle here
stated can be best appreciated by anyone, in relation to his own religious
convictions. I suggest that if we were to take any of the living dogmas

^See Sir James George Frazer, Fol\-Lore in the Old Testament [abr. ed., 1923],
"The Fall of Man."

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CULTURE AND MYTH

of our own religion, we would find that they are founded on our sacred
traditions. The Roman Catholic may lay a greater stress on the teaching
of the Church, the Protestant may go straight through the Bible, but in
the long run it is the sacred tradition, oral or written, which supphes the
foundation of all belief; the sacred tradition, of course, including the
theological interpretation and additions.

I have already mentioned the dogma of original sin; the dogma of
atonement is expressed in the whole of the New Testament and centred
on the sacrifice on Mount Calvary; the dogma of real or symbolic
presence in the sacrament has to be interpreted by reference to accounts
of the Last Supper. The belief in the constitution of our Trinity, the
three persons in their real relationship — a point on which a good deal of
theological dispute and human blood has been spilt — finds its ultimate
sources in the several events of the Bible. To indicate my own naive con-
viction from the time when I was a believing, practising Christian, I
always thought at the Creation, God, the Father, acted in his private
capacity, that later on, somehow, God, the Son, appeared on the stage, at
first foreshadowed in the Old Testament, then as the full personality in
the gospels. The Holy Ghost, to me always a somewhat shadowy, un-
substantial part of divinity, seemed to hover in the distance, present, no
doubt, even when "darkness was on the face of the deep." In fact, I
somehow felt that "when the spirit moved on the face of the waters" it
might have done so most conveniently in a winged form — that of a dove.
And aided, I think, by some pictures, I perceived the ship of God, the
Father, floating above the dark waves of the primeval ocean. I am putting
all this on record because I know from personal experience that no
abstract dogma is sufficient substance for living belief. Belief, in its live
form, turns to the real figures of sacred history as the act and word
establishing salvation. Take, then, one living dogma after another.
Whether we be Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile, Buddhist or fol-
lower of Mrs. Eddy, Spiritist or Mormon, follow it up to its living roots
and we will find that it leads back to some sacred events, or, at least, to
some implication of a great picture emerging out of a story, of creation,
of fall, of the tribulation of a chosen people, or of the fervent visions of
the prophets.

It might not be so easy, perhaps, to do the reverse, to take an incident,
even an important incident, in our holy writings, and to show how it has
crystallised into a specific doctrine of faith, into a moral precept, or into
a dogma of social behaviour. But of such an examination the results
would be astonishing. The Flood, for instance, seems at first sight to be
nothing but a dramatic tale. In reality — and here I speak again largely
from personal experiences of living faith — the Flood is a mythological
proof in vindication of God's moral vigilance. When humanity went

MYTH AS A DRAMATIC DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA

249

completely astray, God was there to chastise men and women and to
award one exception. The Flood was a miracle, and a miracle with a
moral implication; it stands as testimony of God's interest in moral
behaviour and to his supreme justice.

It is easier, perhaps, to treat Christianity in the anthropological spirit
than to approach savage and primitive religions with a truly Christian
mind. The un-Christian attitude displayed by many of us towards primi-
tive beliefs, our conviction that they are just idle superstitions and gross
forms of idolatry, has deeply affected the study of primitive religions by
Europeans. Savage tales of a sacred character have often been taken as
mere idle fiction. Had it been recognised that they are the counterparts of
our own sacred writings, those who have collected them might perhaps
have studied more fully the ethical, ritual and social influence of primitive
mythology. Thus, ethnographic evidence has to be largely vitiated by a
false theoretical approach to the subject. Again, in the study of some
historical religions, of Egypt, Vedic India, Mesopotamia, of the ancient
orient, we have a full documentation of their sacred writings, a much
more limited account of their ritual, and hardly any data available of
how their religions were actually lived in morals, social institutions and
public life.

I am saying all this in order to draw the intelligent reader's attention
to the fact that the best understanding of religion can be obtained by an
objective view of what we believe in practice in our own society. The
next best can be achieved by a really scientific study of exotic religions
as they are practised to-day by non-Christian communities. The under-
standing of dead religions of which we have only scattered data and
fragmentary documents and monuments is not the royal road for the
comprehensive study of religion.

The point of view here developed has then as its main philosophic basis
the principle that the most important thing about a religion is how it is
lived. "Faith apart from works is barren." Since myth is an inevitable
background of faith, its very backbone indeed, we have to study myth as
it affects the life of people.

In anthropological jargon, this means that myth or sacred story has to
be defined by its function. It is a story which is told in order to establish
a belief, to serve as a precedent in ceremony or ritual, or to rank as a
pattern of moral or religious conduct. Mythology, therefore, or the
sacred tradition of a society, is a body of narratives woven into their
culture, dictating their belief, defining their ritual, acting as the chart of
their social order and the pattern of their moral behaviour. Every myth
has naturally a literary content, since it is always a narrative, but this
narrative is not merely a piece of entertaining fiction or explanatory
statement to the believer. It is a true account of sensational events which

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CULTURE AND MYTH

have shaped the constitution of the world, the essence of moral conduct,
and determines the ritual contact between man and his maker, or other
powers that be.

It may be well at this point of the argument to pause for a moment
and draw the attention of the reader, especially if he be a layman, to the
fact that we are not elaborating a commonplace. It is maintained here
that myth is an intrinsic part in the make-up of any religion, more pre-
cisely that it supplies the charter for ritual, belief, moral conduct and
social organisation. This implies that myth is not a piece of primitive
science, nor yet a primeval philosophic allegory of a semi-poetic, rhapsodic
nature, nor yet a strangely garbled historic account. Hence the primary
function of myth is neither to explain, nor to recount past historical
events, nor to express the fantasies or crystallised day-dreams of a com-
munity. This view is not new or revolutionary; I have formulated it at an
earlier period, more clearly, as it seemed to me then, too emphatically as
was said by some of my colleagues, but the whole approach is an actual
outcome of modern humanistic trends. The whole emphasis on the social
aspect of religion, first recognised by Robertson Smith, later developed by
Durkheim, by Hubert Morse and Radcliffe-Brown, brings near to us the
question of the social aspect of mythology. The emphasis laid on behaviour
and conduct in modern social sciences would also lead us to enquire
whether mythology does or does not affect the ritual and moral behaviour
of man. The psycho-analytic connection of myth with dreams and day-
dreams, with fantasies and ideals, distorted though it might appear in
many points to the unanalysed and uninitiated average citizen, does em-
phasise the dynamic aspect of myth, its connection with the constitution
of the human family in its pragmatic aspect. But above all, the so-called
functional approach, in the treatment of cultural phenomena, leads us
directly to the study of myth through its cultural function. This approach
insists on the fact that ideas, ritualised activities, moral rules, do not
lead, in any culture, an isolated existence in water-tight compartments;
that Man acts because he believes and he believes because the truth has
been revealed to him in a miraculous presentation; that sacred tradition,
moral standards, and ritual ways of approaching Providence are not
isolated but that they work one on another, seems an almost self-evident
assertion. That this is not the case a rapid survey of some theories of
myth, current or recently advanced, will readily convince us.

Previous theories of folklore

Every one of these last-mentioned views has at one time or another
dominated the scientific or pre-scientific conception of myth. Euhemerists,
ancient and modern, hold that myth always centres round a kernel or
core of historical truth, misrepresented by false symbolism and literary
embellishments. Euhemerism still survives in all those approaches which

MYTH AS A DRAMATIC DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA

251

used primitive tradition to establish historical fact. There is a great
deal of truth in this view; the legends of Polynesia do contain undoubtedly
a historical kernel. The reinterpretation of oriental mythology by Elliot
Smith, Perry and [A. M.] Hocart has contributed to our knowledge of
certain phases in the diffusion of culture. At the same time it is certain
that the search for the historical kernel in the tribal tradition of the
community touches but one aspect of the problem and probably not the
most essential. It certainly does not define the actual sociological function
of mythology. The main object of sacred tradition is not to serve as a
chronicle of past events; it is to lay down the effective precedent of a
glorified past for repetitive actions in the present. The historical assess-
ment of myth, useful as it may be in many cases, has to be supplemented
by the sociological theory of myth for two reasons. First of all, if the
views here developed are correct, it is of the greatest importance that the
field worker should not merely study the text of a sacred story or
legend, but also, above all, its pragmatic effects on the social organisation,
religious practices and moral conduct of the living society. In the second
place, the theoretical explanation of miraculous, obscene, or extravagant
elements in the myth cannot be achieved by treating such elements as
distortions of historical facts. They, as well as many other motives of
historical narratives, can only be understood by reference to ritual,
ethical, and social influences of the story on present day conduct.

The theory that the nature of myth consists in an allegorical presenta-
tion of natural phenomena is associated in this country with the name of
Max Miiller. Here again, it would be wrong to reject his contribution en
bloc. For there is no doubt that men's interest in certain phases of nature,
above all in the growth of plants and in the reproduction of animals, has
been expressed in religious rites, and these, as we know, are connected with
mythology. But nature symbolism, especially as it is practised up to this
very day by certain schools of thought in Germany, has short-circuited
the problem by eliminating the intermediary link of ritual, prayer and
religious belief. It has instead introduced two false concepts. One of them
is the view that the real nature of myths is completely misconceived by
those who now tell them and believe in them. In other words, that the
allegoric or esoteric meaning of the combats, of the ordeals, of the crimes,
triumphs and heroic deeds — which in reality are but cryptic accounts of
the courses of the sun, of the phases of the moon, of the growth and
decay of vegetation — corresponds to a primitive or a mythopoeic phase
of humanity. This, our learned colleagues would tell us, can only be
elucidated by a sound intuition, which allows us to guess at the inward
meaning of the allegory. To the present writer, it is quite clear from his
personal experience in the field, as well as from his perusal of literature,
that this assumption of an entirely different mentality which created
myths, and of another which practised them, is unsatisfactory. The events

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recounted in myths are so closely related to what human beings are
doing now, albeit on a magnified, miraculous scale, that no esoteric ex-
planation is satisfactory to account for the nature of myth. The other
weakness in this type of explanation lies in their assumption not only that
the whole substance of a mythological narrative is symbolic, but that all
the symbolism refers to one or to another process of nature. Thus, accord-
ing to some writers, all myths can be reduced to the course of the sun,
and nothing else; or, according to others, to the phases of the moon; yet
others see in them the processes of growth and development of plants or
beasts only. But if the view here presented is right, and mythology
follows belief, ritual and morality, then even these references to natural
processes or astronomic events, which we find actually in myths, must
differ from tribe to tribe and from region to region. Where climate and
soil allow men to develop agriculture, the magic and religion of the people
will centre round the life of plants, and myth will contain references to
the growth and decay of crops, to the influences of sun, wind and rain.
Hunter's moon, in any case, is important, because it regulates tribal life
through its place in the calendar. Without underrating, therefore, the role
of nature worship in religion and of references to natural processes in
mythology, I would like to insist that both must be studied through the
three-fold approach of religious dogma, ethics and ritual.

In combatting the allegorical interpretation of Max Miiller, Andrew
Lang developed the aetiological theory of primitive myth. In one way this
was an advance because it assigned a more business-like role for myth in
primitive culture. Yet it was vitiated by the way in which its sponsor
formulated it. Let me quote his own words: "Savage men are like our-
selves in curiosity and anxiety, causas cognoscere rerum, but with our
curiosity they do not possess our powers of attention. They are as easily
satisfied with an explanation of phenomena as they are eager to possess an
explanation." "The savage stage of thought" which for civilised observers
resembles a "temporary madness" (Miiller) seeks an explanation of
phenomena which presents itself "and that explanation he makes for
himself or receives from tradition, in the shape of a myth. . . . Savage
mythology, which is also savage science, has a reply to questions" (of the
origin of the world, of man and of beasts) Now the fact is that, on the
whole, neither we, nor the savages, have a natural curiosity for the knowl-
edge of causes. This curiosity in civilised man resides exclusively in the
highly technical and differentiated scientific interest which is a product of
a far-reaching division of labour. On the other hand, savages, Hke our-
selves, must possess a sound, empirical, and practical knowledge which
they need in all their technical processes, economic pursuits and collective
activities on a large scale, such as war, sailing and trekking. To equate

^Article on "Mythology," by Andrew Lang, Encyclopedia Britannica, 12th Edit.,
1922, pp. 131-32.

MYTH AS A DRAMATIC DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA

253

savage mythology with savage science is one of the greatest acts of
violence perpetrated in the theoretical treatment of human culture. It
has given rise to the later theories about the entirely different mentality
of primitive man, about the prelogical mentality of savages and about the
incapability of scientific or empirical thinking. The very fact that we
have our own mythology quite as developed as a primitive for fulfilling
the same function might have taught all the theorists of myth as an out-
come of a different earlier mind, that their theories, to say the least, were
insufficient. Yet all these views still influence modern scientific thought.*
The somewhat eclectic and vague statement of the subject by Professor
Ruth Benedict in the Encyclopaedia of Social Science, vide "Myth" and
"Folklore," shows an advance from previous theories of myth. In this last-
named article we find the following summing up: "Modern folklorist
study is freeing itself from preconceptions and of far-fetched allegories
and is founding itself upon the importance of folklore as a social
phenomena, and as a means of expression by a social group of its own
attitudes and cultural life. By regarding folklore as a cultural trait like
technology, social organisation, or religion, any special consideration of
communal authorship is made unnecessary, since myths are as much or
as little due to communal creation as marriage or fertility rites. All cul-
tural traits, including folk tales, are in the last analysis individual crea-
tions determined by cultural conditioning" (p. 291, 1931). And again,
in article s.v. "Myth": "Myth is among some peoples the keystone of the
religious complex, and religious practices are unintelligible, except by
way of their mythology" (p. 180). But she considers that "The origin
of religion is not to be sought in mythological concepts, nor the origin of
myth in religion, but the two have constantly cross-fertilised each other,
and the resulting complex is a product of both primary traits." The
view taken that folklore expresses social attitudes or that mythology and
religion cross-fertilised each other does not reach the clear recognition of

* Compare, for instance, the two last editions of Notes arid Queries in Anthropology.
In the last but one edition, we find the definition of myth as "stories which are intended
to explain an abstract idea or vague and difficult conception," page 210. This is, of
course, Andrew Lang with a vengeance. In the last edition, the substance of the theory
here advanced was accepted completely; indeed, large chunks from a previous publica-
tion of mine are included (unfortunately without acknowledgements, without inverted
commas, and without my permission). On page 329, lines 19 to 23 are the verbal
repetition of a sentence on pages 119 to 120 of my Myth in Primitive Psychology, lines
24 to 33 are word for word with only slight abbreviations taken over from Myth in
Primitive Psychology, page 124. Again the article on "Myth" in the 12th Edit, of the
Ency. Brit, was written by Lang and contains a clear statement of the aetiological theory
of myth. The 14th, the last one to contain a new article on myth, gives a brief summary
of various theories and ends up with a statement of the functional and sociological in-
terpretation of myth, and contains the quotation from Myth in Primitive Psychology by
the present writer.

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CULTURE AND MYTH

the specific social function of myth as a charter of ritual belief, ethics
and social organisation. In fact, Professor Benedict explicitly criticises
the views advanced by myself in her article on myth. She denies that the
functional nature of myth as a charter of social organisation, religious
belief, and ritual practices is universal.

We can therefore conclude that the view here advanced is making
headway, but that it has not yet been universally accepted or clearly
recognised. Yet it is by no means a new or original theory of the present
writer. As in many other matters we owe the first flash of insight to
that great Scot scholar Robertson Smith. Robertson Smith was perhaps
the first clearly to recognise the sociological aspect in all human religions
and also to emphasise, at times perhaps to over-emphasise, the importance
of ritual as against dogma {Religion of the Semites, 3rd ed., 1927).
Religion, according to him, is rather a fixed body of practices than a
system of dogmas. There may perhaps be a slight exaggeration in his
statement that "antique religions have, for the most part, no creed; they
consisted entirely of institutions and practices" {op. cit., p. 16). For in
another place he is more correct in saying that ^'mythology takes the
place of dogma. . . The rite, in short, was connected, not with a
dogma but with a myth" (p. 17). If we are correct in stating, not that
each myth contains a dogma, but that most dogmas have their foundation
in myth, we see that Robertson Smith has anticipated fully the point of
view here, that "so far as the way of thinking expressed in a myth is
not already expressed in the ritual itself, it had no properly religious
sanction; the myth, apart from the ritual, affords only a doubtful and
slippery kind of evidence." In this, Robertson Smith recognises clearly
that any narrative has to be assessed by the function that it plays in
organised religious behaviour. I would say that a myth that is not ex-
pressed in ritual is not a myth but merely an old wives' or an old men's
tale. In other words, any definition or classification of folklore that
ignores its influence on ritual and also on social organisation must remain
barren. This is implied already in Robertson Smith's view that "reUgion
was the body of fixed religious practices . . . and practice preceded
doctrinal theory" (p. 19). At present we do not worry so much over
the prius-posterus, but we retain the principle that doctrinal theory
and traditional practices are two aspects of the same thing; that they
grow up together and that to study one without the other is a fundamental
error of method.

Robertson Smith's view has influenced many subsequent writers; Dr.
E. A. Gardner, writing on myth, in Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion
and Ethics y [states] that "mythology, by its explanations and illustra-
tions of the nature and character of the gods or other powers, would
help man to keep his relations with them on the right basis." This might

MYTH AS A DRAMATIC DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA

255

seem like a compromise between Andrew Lang and Robertson Smith, but
as long as explanation is meant as a code and a charter for the correct
carrying out of ritual practices, the essence of myth is correctly stated.
The two volumes of Frazer's monumental work on the cults and myths of
Adonis, Attis and Osiris contain a documentation of the point of view
here developed, pervaded throughout as they are by the principles of
Robertson Smith and the great insight of the author of The Golden
Bough himself.

But where the inadequacy of the present state of anthropological knowl-
edge makes itself most felt and the emphasis on the cultural function of
myth is most necessary, is in the actual technique and methods of field
work. A few first-rate writers, notably those whose work will be used in
the subsequent pages, i.e., Spencer and Gillen, Fewkes, Gushing, A. R.
Brown, Elsdon Best, as well as the younger field workers in the func-
tional schools. Dr. Raymond Firth, Dr. I. A. Richards and Dr. H. Powder-
maker, have supplied us with adequate data. But in many, even excellent,
books, it would be difficult to find the co-relation between folklore and
religion which would allow us to test and document the leading principles
of Robertson Smith and his followers.

The final test of any theory in a branch of learning which claims to be
scientific lies in its empirical value. Does the view here advanced open
up new avenues of empirical research; does it force us to observe new
facts and new relations between facts? Perhaps I can best bring home to
you the significance of the present theory of myth by recounting briefly
how I was forced to adopt this point of view in my field work. When I
went out to New Guinea, I was already acquainted with the universally
influential aetiological explanation of myth. This theory has, as we have
seen, the fatal implication that we have to collect stories and regard
them as self-contained documents of primitive science. I had to learn
the lesson of functional co-relation between myth and ritual in the field.

llllilll 1 1

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

I am speaking here about primitive religion and primitive science and
about their relation to one another. I am speaking as an anthropologist,
and anthropology, as you know, is the study of man in general and of
primitive man or the savage, in particular.

The comparative study of religions and of the beginnings of science
enters, therefore, within the scope of my speciality as one of its most
important subject-matters. And in addressing you here, I feel it my duty
not only to pronounce my personal views as to the relation of science to
religion, but also to tell you what the science which specialises in the
study of this relation has to give as its considered opinion. I shall try to
lead you to the very sources of faith in the heart of primitive man. I
shall also try to show you the earliest attempts of the human mind to
deal with reality, that is the beginnings of science.

Has primitive man a religion? Or is he merely obsessed by savage
superstitions, surrounded by the darkness of heathendom? This can be
answered categorically: religious beliefs and practices, as well as religious
morality, do exist among savages.

Has, then, primitive man also his science? Certainly. He employs his
senses and his brains, he observes shrewdly and draws correct conclusions.
He thus creates a body of knowledge and a tradition of knowledge — that
is, genuine science.

The most important lesson from this talk will be that religion and
science have existed from the very beginning, and that they have each
occupied a different place in human activities. Each has its own task and
its own province. It will be our business to define the respective tasks of
religion and science.

What is, then, primitive religion? The reader of our classics, of Tylor

This was a talk over the network of the British Broadcasting Corporation,
and appeared in The Listener, October 29, 1930 {Vol. IV, No. 94), pp.
683-84, 716-17 ; it is reprinted by permission.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

257

and of Lord Avebury, of Andrew Lang, of Robertson Smith, or of Frazer
will readily answer: Primitive religion consists in animism, totemism,
nature worship, ancestor cult, and other similar things. All this sounds
very well, and perhaps even very savage, but what is it all in reality?

Animism is the belief in the human soul; and in its survival after
death. Hence, animism entails a cult of the dead. It also declares that
Nature is animated by spiritual beings. Put in plain English, this savage
belief is nothing else but faith in immortality and in a spiritual side to
the world. There is, then, nothing so very strange or savage in it — in fact
a great many of us are animists, all who believe in man's immortal soul,
and in its survival after death.

How does primitive animism originate? The older anthropologists would
tell you that the savage, pondering on dreams, visions, and cataleptic
states, and trying to explain it all, arrives at a theory of the soul. But
I should prefer to show you how animism works and what it does for man.

Follow me, then, for a few moments to a small island in the distant
South Seas and a few years back in time. A native friend of mine, a
Melanesian islander, is on his death-bed; he knows it and so do his nearest
relatives and friends. Though mere savages, they are as deeply moved as
any one of us would be. Those assembled at the death-bed are united by
strong emotions. Fear and sorrow are unmistakable in the countenance of
the dying man and of his friends.

Do they succumb to these emotions? Do they surrender to the horror
of death? No! Moved they certainly are, but what controls them is an
active purpose. They are carrying out certain traditionally prescribed acts
by which they are able to save the dying man; that is, safely to conduct
his spirit into the next world and to secure him a happy existence there.

They have covered the dying man with ornaments and flowers; they
have put fruit and prepared dishes around him. Their most precious pos-
sessions are heaped on his body. All this — or rather its spiritual part — he
will take on his journey to the other world. Messages are given him to
transmit to those who have gone before. Some of those gathered round the
death-bed seem to hear voices from the other world. The dying man is
immersed in an atmosphere of affirmation. He is steeped in immortality,
in the communion between the two worlds. Those whom he is about to
leave take him by the hand, as it were, and lead him across the dividing
line. As death approaches, the relatives and friends throng round the
dying man, embrace him, rub his body with valuables and sacramental
gifts and utter ritual words of comfort. I was forcibly reminded of the
sacrament of Extreme Unction and of the Viaticum, as administered in
the religion of my youth, in Roman Catholicism.

At last death occurs; the main actor has made his final exit. It is the
most terrible and the most sacred moment of all religious experience. The
helplessness of man and the hopelessness of the event are ruthlessly driven

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home to all who witness. Does rehgion merely express this fear and
horror, this sorrow and despair? Is religion with its gods really made up
of fear, as the famous Latin saying, and so many learned theories, would
make us believe?

No. Here again religion orders man to act, and to act constructively.
In an outburst of passionate grief, the survivors throw themselves on the
corpse, fondle the dead remains, break out in loud wailing. They are
seized, as it were, with a frenzy of ritualised sorrow. They tear out their
hair; they gash their bodies; they rush round, destroying their material
possessions.

But all this is ordered, foreseen, determined by tradition. More than
that, it is all spiritually significant and morally effective. It helps the
survivors, and it helps the spirit of the dead. Religion is never negative; it
never allows man to surrender to fear, to doubt, and to despair. Religious
ritual, and the belief which sustains it, transforms death from the most
shattering experience into one solemn and serious, but never hopeless.

In the customs and manners of burial we find also the same principle:
the horror of the corpse and the fear of the dead overcome, the relics
sacrahsed, the terrible conflict of death solved. For there is a curious
conflict between the desire to retain the corpse and the desire to get rid
of it. In mummification, the body is preserved as far as is possible; m
cremation, it is destroyed completely. In the infinite variety of mixed and
intermediate modes, there is a conflict and a dilemma. You love the
remains and you express your love ritually by clinging to the relics; you
also loathe them and show this by cutting off all that has touched death
from contact with life. Such is the ritual conflict as we find it in Central
Australia and in South Europe, in Ancient Egypt or Babylon and in
Melanesia.

This ritual conflict expresses something very deep and real. Death must
inevitably remain mysterious and create a conflict in the human soul. It
is the dreaded end of human life by all earthly measures. It is the
transformation of a loved personality into something gruesome and
decaying. It changes a benevolent being into a malignant and dangerous
ghost. Death, then, either tears all significance out of human life, or else
death has to be transformed and to be given an entirely new meaning.

Upon this conflict and chaos breaks the redeeming light of religious
truth. It reveals to man that death is not an end, that the main principle
of personality persists; that it is possible for the survivors to keep in
touch with the departed spirit.

Animism, the belief in the immortality of the soul, is not a mere
philosophic doctrine; it is the result of a deep emotional revelation. In
animism, religion standardises the comforting, the saving belief, and thus
it solves the dilemma of life and death, of survival and decomposition.

At the various ceremonies of death and after, in the ways of disposing

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

259

of the dead and in the rites of burial, in ceremonies of commemoration
and of communion with the dead, above all, perhaps, in ancestor worship,
there is embodied a live faith in the immortality of the soul, the affirma-
tion of the reality of spiritual existence.

The supreme crisis of life — Death — is thus sacralised or sacramentalised
throughout humanity. Religion also puts its blessings on other vital crises
and capital events of human existence. Birth, puberty, marriage, parent-
hood, are also made sacred by religious rites and ethical observances.
Human existence is thus encased in that wonderful sacramental frame-
work which is one of the main aspects and glories of religion. The main
events of human life are surrounded with feelings of holiness; they are
made public, morally momentous, and spiritually binding. In sacralising
the crises of life, primitive religion does not trespass on the preserves of
primitive science, any more than Christianity, for instance, in its sacra-
ments of Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, or Extreme Unction is guilty
of usurping the task of the physicist, the chemist, or the historian.

But what about the really savage sides of primitive heathendom? Take
magic, for instance, or fetishism. Surely here primitive man shows himself
superstitious, as he also does in worshipping animals, plants, or totemic
objects. And again, is it possible to have science side by side with all the
magical hocus pocus and with the heathen worship of stick, stone, or
beast?

To answer these questions let us inquire what is primitive man*s real
concern with his environment. He has to eat, first and foremost, and the
surrounding nature is his living larder. He depends on the surrounding
world for his raw material, for fair winds, for the open road, for sun, and
for rain. At times, nature turns on him a friendly face; but then again
it becomes unmanageable, dangerous, threatening him with wild animals,
poisonous plants, with storms and accidents. And primitive man is much
more at the mercy of the unexpected than are we.

Now here the most important thing to realise is that primitive man
makes full use of his knowledge wherever he can. You must discard the
notion that the savage is a child or a fool, a mystic or a nincompoop. I
have seen the savage hunter at work: he knows his animals and their
habits; he is familiar with the properties of his weapons, the strength of
his spear and the flight of his boomerang. I have trusted myself to
savage sailors on their frail craft over dangerous seas and under trying
conditions. They understand wind and weather, stability and tides, in a
truly reliable, that is, in a scientific, way. It is only because he is able to
observe correctly and to think clearly, that, with his simple tools and
limited co-operation, primitive man can master nature as well and as
effectively as he actually does.

This, I trust, is convincing — but it is neither obvious nor generally

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accepted by modern science. Professor [Thomas H.] Huxley, in his first
talk, gave us an admirable summary of the current anthropological views
on our subject: yet he did not even mention primitive science. He and
most contemporary thinkers v/ould follow Sir James Frazer in identifying
early magic with primitive science. Other learned anthropologists go
even further and deny that logic, observation, or empirical thought are
possible to the savage. He has been made, in fact, by some recent theories,
into an incurably superstitious, mystical — to use the new-fangled technical
term — into a "pre-logical" being. All this is good copy and pleasant read-
ing— it makes us feel really civilised and superior — but it is not true to
facts. Science, primitive as much as civilised, is the solid achievement of
the human mind, embodied in the tradition of rational knowledge and
put to practical purposes. As far as primitive man has really obtained
the mastery of natural forces, and of the forces in his own nature, he
relies on science and on science alone.

True, science advances, and modern science has grown out of all
recognition from its humble origins. Science is conscious of its power and
of its steady advances; proud of its ruthless conquests of fields hitherto
left to mysticism and speculation, or to religious dogmatism. At times it
becomes, therefore, arrogant and aggressive. Even more so because often it
has had to be on the defensive. Religion and magic do not always give
science its due, nor make way graciously and wisely. We had our funda-
mentalists from the time when Galileo was tortured, to the somewhat
less dramatic but more dramatised performances of the late W. J. Bryan.
Fundamentahsm naturally exists in primitive savagery also, for their
traditional routine, magically or religiously sanctioned, opposes all innova-
tion and change. In savagery, fundamentalism is, on the whole, a beneficent
force, though never a very amiable one.

The savage, I repeat, has got a firm grip on his science, even as his
science keeps him well under its control. But his science fails him at
times. Does our science, of which we are so proud and confident, never
leave us in the lurch? It has not yet domesticated luck, chance, and
accident. It cannot prevent earthquakes and famine, war, crime, or
disease. So that even we, you and I, when too much at the mercy of
hazard, become superstitious and repair to magic. You and I have our
mascots and talismans, our signs and omens, our little ritual of salt and
of mirrors, of new moons and of ladders. We smile at them but we
practise them a great deal more seriously than our smiles might warrant.
Nor can they be dismissed as insignificant survivals from primeval times.
For they show as rank a growth on the most recent soil of human nature
as on the most primitive.

We even see big systems of modern magic, of practical utiHtarian
belief, sprouting under our very eyes. Take Christian Science or the
recently re-established astrology, faith-healing or theosophy, clairvoyance

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

261

or the revelation of medium and table-rapping which calls itself spiritual-
ism. One and all are new, strong, vital forms of modern civilised belief.
They all contain a genuine response to a real need. But in my opinion
they resemble primitive magic rather than religion, both in what they are
and in what they do. With all that I regard them as highly respectable,
for they seem to be indispensable.

And so within the context of primitive culture is also primitive magic,
in which the savage tries to harness his luck and to bribe his chance, by
spell, ritual, and taboo. Magic flourishes wherever man cannot control
hazard by means of science. It flourishes in hunting and fishing, in times
of war and at seasons of love, in the control of wind, rain, and sun, in
regulating all dangerous enterprises, above all in disease and in the shadow
of death.

We must guard against the mistake of assuming that magic represents
primitive science. Magic never undertakes to do that which primitive man
can easily achieve by knowledge, manual skill, and bodily effort. The
savage never digs the soil by magic, nor does he throw his spears by
ritual or sail his canoes by spell.

In Melanesia I studied an extensive and complicated system of garden
magic. The soil was first blessed for fertility in general; then the plots
were cleared by perfectly rational and practical procedures. A second
magical ceremony followed to fumigate the cleared ground and thus
prevent blights, pests, and insects. Then, again, came planting, done skil-
fully, practically, and scientifically. But when the plants sprouted and
there was nothing better to do but to hope for good luck, magic again
was enacted in ceremony after ceremony, designed to make the crops
strong and good. And so, throughout the whole series, the rites alternated
with the activities, each aspect, the rational and the magical, kept abso-
lutely distinct from the other. The same is true of most Melanesian
magic and of magic all the world over.

You can see, then, the relation of primitive magic to primitive science:
they assist each other and co-operate, but never trespass on each other's
preserves. You can see, also, the utility and the function of magic.
Sociologically, it is an organising force; it brings order, rhythm, and
control into the practical activities. The magician becomes the natural
leader and often grows into the chief or the king. Individually, it gives
man confidence and allows him to act firmly in the teeth of adversity
and heavy odds.

Magic, then, has its own cultural task to perform. It has a value for
primitive man and for primitive culture, and in all this its province and
its function are different from those of primitive science.

It also differs from religion. For, apart from magic and from science,
man also turns to nature in a religious spirit. Abundance of food and
material welfare in general are, to primitive man, the primary needs of

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CULTURE AND MYTH

normal life. They are also the condition of any spiritual advance. But
abundance of food and of goods is given to man independently of his
efforts, often independently of his magic. Primitive man, even as civilised,
feels an autonomous purpose in nature which at times rewards, at times
punishes, and invariably follows its own mysterious way. Man naturally
turns towards this purpose or providence; he personifies it and tries to
propitiate it. This is the foundation of nature worship, which takes
various forms, of which the most primitive, perhaps, is totemism. But all
nature worship implies the deification of natural forces, the admission of
a purpose, a providence, a personal guidance in the universe.

Our short, but, I trust, convincing glimpses into the drama of primitive
life demonstrate one thing; the two main sources of religious inspiration
are the desire for immortality and a craving for the communion with
God. In affirming this I find myself in opposition to most current theories.
Professor Huxley, who gave such a masterly summary of current views,
specifically told us that God and immortality play no part in primitive
religion. But I find that these are the twin needs which we all feel,
which man has felt from the beginning, whenever he has been unable to
face his destiny. In all this, religious belief is not a mere emotional
effervescence, still less an intellectual interpretation. Religion promises
immortality for man, and it reveals to him his God or his gods. It is
this active or creative side of religion which seems to me to be the most
important, and on which I have placed the greatest emphasis. Thus, the
comparative science of religion compels us to recognise religion as the
master-force of human culture. Religion makes man do the biggest things
he is capable of, and it does for man what nothing else can do; it gives
him peace and happiness, harmony and a sense of purpose; and it gives
all this in an absolute form.

You can see that, throughout all this, I have spoken of religion in
general, bringing the primitive and the civilised together, stressing the
similarity between them. But I do not want you to forget all that is
crude, cruel, and degraded in the rehgions of the savage, the ordeals
and obscenities at initiation, the horrible rites of death, disgusting and
murderous, the licence and degradation of the marriage ceremonial — all
this and a great deal more could be adduced to make a heavy indictment
of primitive heathendom. And yet, the cruelties and ordeals often
function as tests of endurance. They assist the moral training in self-
control which frequently goes with them. Licence at a wedding is often
the final fling of pre-nuptial libertinage, a farewell to what is henceforth
forbidden. The ritual at death serves to emphasise its solemnity and the
solidarity of the dead with those who are killed to accompany them.

Black magic, again, which consists in the tampering with the health
and life, as well as with the wealth and happiness of others, seems at first

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

263

sight to be wholly evil; but it is often used for good, and it has its good
and comforting sides. It makes disease and decay appear man-made and
artificial, hence remediable. In fact, all savage sorcerers are able to cure
as well as to kill. Black magic, also, though often used with malice for
oppression or blackmail, is more frequently employed as an instrument of
rough justice. It is used to redress wrongs and to buttress established
power and privilege. It is a conservative force, and, as such, on the whole
valuable in a primitive community. Black magic is like a sharp sword, two-
edged, ready for justice and for crime, but, under primitive conditions,
very useful. With all this, we do not want to indulge too freely in the
apologetics of darkest primeval heathendom. Primitive religion has its
shadows; so have our religions. The real point, however, which I want to
make is that religion, even at its worst, is never completely useless or
wholly evil. Even in its lowest forms it has a divine spark, and when I
speak of *'divine" I express simply the point of view of the believer and
not my own. As an anthropologist I can speak of the "divine" only as it
manifests itself to man and in man.

The comparative science of religions has no warrant to declare the
absolute, transcendental truth of any one religion. Since religious revela-
tion is an experience which, as a matter of principle, lies beyond the
domain of science, either discipline is sovereign and independent, and
neither can testify for or against the other. Speaking as an anthropologist,
I have, therefore, to associate myself with the affirmation repeated by all
my collaborators in this series — that religion and science need not be in
open conflict, since their respective aims and provinces are distinct and
independent.

You might like, however, to know my personal opinion as to the relation
of science and religion. Let me, then, speak, not as a specialist, but simply
as a thinking and feeling man.

Personally, I am an agnostic. I am not able, that is, to deny the exist-
ence of God: nor would I be inclined to do so, still less to maintain that
such a belief is not necessary. I also fervently hope that there is a survival
after death, and I deeply desire to obtain some certainty on this matter.
But with all that I am unable to accept any positive religion — Christian
or otherwise. I cannot positively believe in Providence in any sense of
the word, and I have no conviction of personal immortality.

Thus, as you see, I profoundly differ from the confident rationalist or
disbeliever of the past generation or two. We all know the story of La
Place and the discussion which he had with Napoleon the First about
his system of Celestial Mechanics. The Emperor asked him: "What place
have you given to God in your system?" "Sire," was the answer, "this is
an hypothesis of which I have never felt the need." It is the proud
answer of a confident atheist, but it does not ring true to the humble
agnostic. On the contrary, I should say that God is a reality and not a

264

CULTURE AND MYTH

hypothesis, and a reaUty of which I am in the greatest need, though this
need I cannot satisfy or fulfil. The typical rationalist says: "I don't know
and I don't care." The tragic agnostic would rejoin: "I cannot know, but
I feel a deep and passionate need of faith, of evidence, and of revelation."
Personally, to me, and to those many who are like me, nothing really
matters except the answer to the burning questions: "Am I going to live
or shall I vanish like a bubble?" "What is the aim, and the sense, and the
issue of all this strife and suffering?" The doubt of these two questions
lives in us and affects all our thoughts and feelings. Modern agnosticism
is a tragic and shattering frame of mind. To dismiss agnosticism as an
easy and shallow escape from the moral obligations and discipline of
religion — this is an unworthy and superficial way of dealing with it.

Is science responsible for my agnosticism and for that of others who
think like me? I believe it is, and therefore I do not love science, though
I have to remain its loyal servant. Science deals with truth and with
evidence, and it develops a critical sense and a passion for full experience
which spread beyond its own limited domain. Now, religious truth is
vouched for by two sources of experience. We have in the first place the
original revelation, handed on in religious teaching. This is the founda-
tion of the great historical religions, notably of Christianity. And then
there are the miracles and disclosures of the present day on which most of
the new-fangled creeds are founded. Science has spoilt us for the un-
questioning acceptance of truth at second-hand — the truth of tradition
or of the Gospels. If there ever existed a real experience, if the truth of
divine existence is there to be revealed, I rebel against the assumption
that it has been shown in some dim past to my mythological forebears,
and that it is not vouchsafed to me to-day and in a manner so convincing
that there can be no doubt or cavil. The religious person would say, of
course, that he does receive the revelation of divine truth. I can only reply
that just here there seems to be an unbridgeable gulf between faith and
agnosticism.

The comparative science of religions shows, moreover, that the same
eternal cravings of the human soul have been satisfied by a variety of
obvious fictions, which have worked as well as the nobler religious truths
of our own culture. Thus, the realities of reHgious belief, however highly
we may rate their value, appear almost as instruments created for a
special need. The poison of pragmatism — truth measured by utiHty — is
nowadays invading the comparative study of religions as well as all philos-
ophy and science, and pragmatism is the death of religion as well as of
metaphysics.

When I come, on the other hand, to the modern forms of revelation,
to contemporary miracles, to faith-healing, to spiritualistic mediums, to
palmistry, to the brass tablets of a Joseph Smith or the visions of a
Mrs. [Mary Baker] Eddy, all my scientific morals of method and evidence

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

265

are roused to protest. The evidential value of all this machine-made
revelation, of this surreptitious communion with the beyond, I find worth-
less, and as an aesthetic or emotional experience, distinctly unattractive.
Nor can I accept the inner revelation of Divinity as a system of ideals —
such as Professor Haldane developed before us in a previous talk. His
God is too abstract, too impersonal, to satisfy my craving for a real com-
munion with the personal Guide of the Universe. A belief of that type
contains no guarantee of personal survival after death. And without a
personal God and the belief in immortality, I cannot conceive of a
living religion. Moreover, is it true that the ideals of truth, and beauty,
and goodness really unite all men or most men? Is the modern world, with
its devastating wars, its racial, national, and class hatreds, with its mean
rapacities and wholesale exploitations — is our world really governed by
this inner and universal revelation of truth and harmony to all men
alike? I see no trace of such control. I feel far nearer to the established,
traditional creeds, which appeal to me aesthetically and morally — and for
them I have a deep reverence.

Is there any hope of bridging this deepest gulf, that between tragic
agnosticism and belief? I do not know. Is there any remedy? I cannot
answer this either. What can help us, perhaps, is more and more honesty,
more outspokenness and more sincerity.

It is in this spirit that I have described to you my personal position,
because I felt it my duty to be sincere and outspoken. Those of you who
are fortunate enough to believe, or equally fortunate positively to dis-
believe, will not have detected any missionary accents in my confession
of faith. All my scientific evidence tends to show that there are no
reasons and no room for conflict between science and religion, but, in my
personal experience I have found that science is dangerous, even, perhaps,
when it does not destroy faith completely. Because, through it all and
above all, though I am unable to worship any divinity, I have almost
come to worship, certainly to revere religion.

In all its manifestations — animism and totemism, nature cults and
ancestor worship, prayers to Providence and administrations of sacra-
ments— religion, civilised or primitive, gives man what neither science
nor magic can give.

Religion gives man hope of immortality and the ritual means of achiev-
ing it; it reveals the existence of God or Providence and tells how com-
munion can be established: it affirms the meaning of the world and the
purpose of life; and, through its sacraments, it allows men to obtain a
greater fullness of life. Religion gives man the mastery of his fate, even
as science gives him the control of natural forces, and magic the grip of
chance, luck and accident.

CULTURE AND MYTH

illl

A FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM OF RELIGIOUS SOCIOLOGY

There are certain questions of principle in every branch of science which
cannot be passed over in any comprehensive and thorough treatment of
the subject, and upon the answer of which the further course of inquiry
essentially depends.

Such questions are, as a rule, the most difficult to settle, because only
an overwhelming amount of evidence gathered with the very problem
in view allows of an unequivocal answer. In anthropology the mutual
co-operation of the theorist and of the field-worker is essential in all such
cases.

A question of this type presents itself at the outset in anthropological
investigations of religion. Is there a sharp and deep cleavage between
religious and profane matters among primitive peoples? Or, in other words:
Is there a pronounced dualism in the social and mental life of the savage,
or, on the contrary, do the religious and non-religious ideas and activities
pass and shade into each other in a continuous manner?

This question is of utmost importance for the general theory of religion.
Professor Durkheim postulates the existence of a perfectly sharp and
deep cleavage between the two domains of the sacre and profane, and
his entire theoretical construction stands and falls with this assumption.^
Again, Dr. [Ronald R.] Marett is of opinion that, generally speaking,
"the savage is very far from having any fairly definite system of ideas of
a magico-religious kind, with a somewhat specialised department of con-
duct corresponding thereto." ^

This view, although expressed in a somewhat different connection, un-
doubtedly implies the negation of Durkheim's dogmatic standpoint. Again,
Mr. Crawley thinks that for the savage everything has got a religious
dimension,^ a view which also excludes the existence of any irreducible
duahsm of magico-religious on the one hand and secular on the other.

These examples show that the above question, fundamental as it is, is
still unsettled and controversial. What answer does it receive from the
ethnographic evidence? The great Australian ethnographers. Spencer and
Gillen, whose researches have contributed to the advancement of our
knowledge of primitive religion more than any other investigations,
answer the question in the affirmative. The life of an aborigine of Central

This comment appeared in the Annual Report of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science, 1914, pp. 534-3 5, and is reprinted by permission.
^ Les formes eUmentaires de la vie religieuse, Paris, 1912.

^ Notes and Queries on Anthropology, 4th ed., London, 1912. Article on religion.
^Article on religion in Sociological Papers, iii, London, 1910.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

267

Australia is sharply divided into two periods: the one comprising his
everyday life, and the other his magico-religious activities.^ It is evident
throughout Messrs. Spencer and Gillen's two volumes that the properly
religious and magical practices and beliefs are strictly esoteric; that they
are fenced off from everyday life by a wall of taboos, rules, and ob-
servances. Yet reading another standard work of modern anthropology,
Dr. and Mrs. Seligman's monograph on the Veddas, one gets the impres-
sion that among these natives there does not exist anything like a radical
bipartition of things and ideas into religious and profane.

Again, the views held by another recent investigator, Dr. Thurnwald,
with regard to the magic of the natives of the Bismarck Archipelago and
of the Solomon Islands, imply beyond doubt the absence of a clear-cut
division between magico-religious and secular ideas,^ the two classes merg-
ing into and blending with each other.

One conclusion seems to be inevitable: namely, that pending new
evidence it would be rash to dogmatise on the subject under consideration.
I venture to say more. The above-mentioned statements (which could
easily be multiplied) point not merely to different personal equations,
which, however, would be possible in such an enormously complex and
general problem, but they point to real differences in the matter discussed.
The consolidation of the religious life can be different amongst various
peoples, depending as it does upon various social conditions. Thus religion
seems to be best developed and possessing the highest relative social im-
portance among the Central Australians, to a smaller degree among the
Papuans studied by Thurnwald, still less among the Veddas. Where it is
strongest the bipartition postulated by Durkheim seems to be most promi-
nent. Wherever it is less pronounced the two domains shade into each
other and begin to fuse.

Thus probably the division into religious and profane is not an essential
and fundamental feature of religion, suitable to be considered as its very
distinctive characteristic. It is an accidental feature, dependent chiefly
upon the social part played by religion and connected possibly with some
other factors, to determine the influence of which it is, however, necessary
to have more ample evidence, gathered with the problem in view.

''Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 33.

^ "Ethno-psychologische Studien an Siidseevolkern," in Beihefte zur Zeitschrijt fiir
angew. Psychologie, Leipzig, 1913. Paragraph on magic.

llililll 12

ON SIR JAMES FRAZER

1111

SCIENCE AND SUPERSTITION OF PRIMITIVE MANKIND

Sir James Frazer's Golden Bough is in many respects the greatest achieve-
ment of anthropology — a science the short Hfe-history of which allows
still of a rapid survey and a correct apportionment of values. The book,
like no other work, expresses the spirit of modern humanism — the union
of classical scholarship with folk-lore and anthropology. The marble forms
of antique legend and myth are made to lend their beauty to the crude
and queer customs of the savage and the uncouth usages of the peasant,
while the Gods and Heroes of Olympus receive in exchange the vitalising
breath of life and reality from their humbler yet more animate counter-
parts.

It is difficult to review a new version of the work in the ordinary man-
ner. It would be as presumptuous to assess the value of a universally
acknowledged masterpiece of literary art and a classic of scholarship as it
would be unnecessary to indicate the scope of a work known to every
cultured man, a work which has exercised paramount influence over
several branches of learning and has created new lines of scientific re-
search. But though it is superfluous to praise the book or to explain it, the
appearance of the abridged edition seems an opportune occasion for us
anthropologists to undertake a little examination of conscience with regard
to this classic. We all admit that we owe an immense debt to the author
of the Golden Bough and to his work, but have we acquitted ourselves
well of an obligation, have we given him his due in return? By this I
mean, have we taken all that has been offered to us and made the most of

This was a review of The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion by
Sir James George Frazer; if appeared in Nature, May 19, 1923 (Vol. Ill), pp.
65 8-62, and is reprinted by permission.

ON SIR JAMES FRAZER

269

it? Have we followed his lead to the end of the road, have we searched
everywhere where the light of the Golden Botigh has shone?

For this is the difference between the economic and the spiritual order
of things: that in the former it is good to receive material benefits, and,
speaking without cant, painful to give them; while in matters of the mind
it is a joy to bestow but a burden to take, since this has to be done in an
unselfish submission of the spirit, and requires obedience, discipline, and
patience.

Surveying the immense influence exercised by this and Frazer's other
works on contemporary humanistic literature, it might appear as if this
quarry of inspiration and fact, however rich, must have by now become
nearly exhausted. Literally half the subjects of modern anthropological
argument and controversy have been submitted by Frazer for discussion:
totemism, problems of the taboo, origins of kinship and chieftainship,
primitive conceptions of the soul and spiritual life — the list could be
drawn out indefinitely by going into more detail. In Great Britain, in
France, in Germany and the United States, whole schools of anthropologi-
cal science have flourished or grown rankly, respectively, on the ground
broken and first cultivated by Frazer. It is enough to mention the
names of Crawley, Marett, Durkheim, Hubert and Mauss, Van Gennep,
[Wilhelm] Wundt, Freud and his school (in their anthropological
studies), who in their work, some of it of the very first rank, are more
or less dependent on Frazer and his initiative. Yet it would be easy to
show that even this immense and most valuable Frazerian literature has
left enormous areas within the enclosure of the Golden Bough ready for
further cultivation.

It is not from the side of theory, however, that I wish to approach this
great work, but, as a field worker, from the point of view of actual re-
search among savage races. The test of a scientific achievement lies in its
power of anticipation and of prophecy: a sound theory must be the fore-
runner of empirical discoveries, it must allow us to foreshadow new facts
not yet ascertained by observation. It is not when a man talks to us about
things we have seen already, but when, from his study, he can foretell
unsuspected events, can direct us towards unforeseen treasures of fact,
and guide our researches in unexplored countries, it is only then that the
value of his theories is put beyond doubt or cavil. This is well known in
natural science, where the value of a theory is always gauged by its lead in
the laboratory or in the field. In humanistic and historical science the
honour of a prophetic voice has been reserved to its youngest oflf-shoot,
anthropology. For though "history never repeats itself" when we watch it
over a relatively brief span, interested in its detailed course of accidental
happenings, yet the evolution of culture, taken as a whole, is submitted to
definite rules and regularities, and human nature, broadly viewed, as it

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breaks through the media of various civilisations and stages of develop-
ment, remains the same, and, being subject to laws, is thus capable of
prediction.

The Golden Bough has had a triumphant career in this respect. One
after the other the main supports of the lofty edifice, which at first might
have appeared entirely carved out of the author's creative imagination,
were traced to the solid bed-rock of fact by subsequent discoveries among
the backward races. The most fantastic feature in the ritual of Aricia,
the succession by murder, led the author to the theory of the killing of
divine kings, carried out by certain savages, in order to prevent their
end by disease or senile decay. This theory, when first emitted, had only
partial and meagre evidence in recorded fact. But the brilliant discoveries
of Dr. and Mrs. Seligman about the divine kings of the Shilluk, about their
violent end, regularly inflicted after a term of reigning, and about the
spiritual succession by the transmission of the soul, confirmed Sir James
Frazer's theoretical assumptions in every detail. Following this, field-work
has brought, and is still bringing, fresh evidence, enough to prove that
Frazer's researches have revealed an institution of the greatest importance
among backward races.

Sir James Frazer was the first to express the view that before humanity
had begun to worship spiritual beings there was a stage of belief and ritual,
essentially magical, in which man assumed a fixed order of Nature, sub-
ject to the power of specific incantations and rites. Modern research among
savages, in the measure as it penetrates more deeply into the comprehension
of native ideas, tends to establish the correctness, not only of the general
assumption of the magical stage in evolution, but also of Sir James's
detailed theories of the psychology of magic. The nature of primitive king-
ship and power; the paramount role played by the taboo and its psy-
chology; the importance of harvest ritual and ceremonies among savages —
in all this it would be easy to show what copious results recent field-work
has produced by following the suggestions and inspirations of the Golden
Bough.

An irrefutable though somewhat external proof of this is to be found in
the ever-increasing bulk of the book as it passes through successive editions,
a score of new instances appearing to testify to the truth of some of
Frazer's fundamental propositions, where previous evidence was able only
to supply a few.

To mention only the other masterpiece of Sir James Frazer, Totemism
and Exogamy , we find again, after some thirty years, a small volume ex-
panded into four large ones by the rich harvest of facts which followed
the theoretical forecasts of the author. The ignorance of paternity, at first
observed by Spencer and Gillen among one tribe only, was at once recog-
nised by Frazer as of extreme importance for the early forms of totemic
behef and organisation and kinship. Here again this forecast was confirmed,

ON SIR JAMES FRAZER

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not only by further researches of Sir Baldwin Spencer in the north of
Australia, but also by the discoveries of Dr. Rivers in the New Hebrides,
and by the findings of the present reviewer among a number of Papuo-
Melanesian tribes of Eastern New Guinea. There this ignorance is of ex-
treme importance in shaping the matrilineal ideas and institutions of the
natives, and is also closely connected with their totemism.

There seems to be some need of emphasising this empirical fecundity of
the book — that is, its essentially scientific value. The great admiration
which this work has inspired as a literary masterpiece and as a classic
of comparative history, folk-lore, and archaeology seems to have over-
shadowed the merits of the book as an organiser and director of field-work.
These merits are due, not only to the learning and to the constructive craft
of Sir James, but also mainly to his genius in understanding the funda-
mentals of human nature, especially of the nature of primitive man, such
as we see him represented by the peasant and the savage. In no other work
can we find the same intimate understanding of savage modes of thought
and behaviour, the same unfailing capacity to interpret the savage's
customs, ideas, and traditions from his own point of view, the same
prophetic intuition of what is really important with the native and what
is secondary. It is because of that that no other work of anthropological
theory has received such brilliant confirmation from later researches in
the field, nor is any one of them likely to stimulate future research to the
same degree as the Golden Bough.

To substantiate this last forecast I should like to indicate, on one more
point, this suggestive quality of Frazer's theories. I mean the very leitmotiv
of the book, the importance of vegetable cults for primitive magic and
religion, the enormous concern of primitive mankind for the soil's fertility
and for its conditions, the sun, the rain, and the weather. Over and over
again, in the course of the long and devious explanations of the ritual
of Nemi, we meet with the magic of the skies and of the soil, with the
worship of trees, with the belief in the influence of sex on vegetable
fertility, with harvesting customs and superstitions, with gods and god-
desses of the teeming forces of Nature.

The reader remains under the impression that the interest in the vege-
table world has exercised an overwhelming influence over the formation
of magical and religious belief and ritual; that these, like the luxuriant
mantle of green which covers our earth, have grown out of the union of
the skies with the earth's fertility.

This view, indeed, is not expressed by the author, who even, in the
preface to this new, abridged edition, repudiates an extreme form in which
this opinion had been imputed to him, the view, namely, that all religion
starts from tree worship. '*I am so far from regarding the reverence for
trees as of supreme importance for the evolution of religion, that I con-
sider it to have been altogether subordinate to other factors." This, of

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CULTURE AND MYTH

course, is quite true, but if, instead of tree worship, we take the wider
complex of reHgious phenomena, the cult of vegetation, or rather of
vegetable fertility and its conditions, I for one would fully endorse the
view that here we have one of the very taproots of religious growth. I
perceive, moreover, that this aspect of the Frazerian theories opens up new
lines of empirical research of the greatest promise and importance.

The Golden Bough, in this regard, shows us primitive man as he really
is, not an idle onlooker on the vast and varied spectacle of Nature, evolv-
ing by reflection a sort of speculative philosophy as to its meaining and
origins, but an eager actor, playing his part for his own benefit, trying to
use all the means in his power towards the attainment of his various needs
and desires: supply of food, shelter, and covering; satisfaction of social
ambitions and of sexual passions; satisfaction of some aesthetic impulses
and of sportive and playful necessities. He is interested in all things which
subserve these ends and are thus immediately useful. Round these he de-
velops not only his material technique, his implements, weapons, and
methods of economic pursuit, but also his myths, incantations, rites, and
ceremonies, the whole apparatus of primitive science and superstition.

Among all forces of Nature useful to man, the earth's fertility occupies
quite a privileged and special position in the mind of the savage. Vegetable
life — in its perennial periodicity of active exuberance and relative rest in
the tropics; of life and death in the cold and temperate zones; of barren-
ness and fertility in certain periodically irrigated deserts — exhibits a
regularity and system, a dependence on causes and motives, which seem
to be almost within the control of man, yet from time to time so baffling
to all his endeavours as to keep his interests, hopes, and fears constantly
alive. On this borderland, where man's self-sufficiency utterly fails him,
yet where he perceives a clear order: on this ground, so vital to himself
and so clearly subject to the play of some extraneous regularities or wills,
here the ideas of magic and religion, always a cross-breed of reflection and
emotion, flourish most abundantly. Especially where man begins actively
to shape the forces of Nature in agriculture, magic ranges itself side by
side with technical efforts and becomes a controlling factor of immense
importance.

It would be natural to expect, therefore, that among savages there
exists public magic of fertility, and that, on the sociological side, this leads
to the early forms of chieftainship and kingship, while on the side of
behef it leads to important developments of ritual and cult.

Here we touch on the sociological aspect of Frazer's theories of early
magic. He clearly recognises the existence of a special class, who, by their
magical knowledge, can acquire social importance: "the public magician
occupies a position of great influence, from which, if he is a prudent and
able man, he may advance step by step to the rank of a chief or king." The
author further proceeds to show how very important these specialised

ON SIR JAMES FRAZER

273

magicians are, both in that they perform their services for the whole com-
munity, thus forming an integrating power, and also in that they are the
first examples in the evolution of mankind of specialists freed from the
ordinary burdens and occupations of their fellow-tribesmen, and able to
devote themselves to one pursuit. The evidence which Sir James is able to
adduce in support of his theory of public magic and of its sociological
importance is great, but not quite adequate to substantiate all his theories.
Thus, among the forms of public magic, Sir James can find examples only
by referring to sunshine, rain, and weather. Even this material does not
allow him to demonstrate in detail how political power and social influ-
ence arise from the exercise of the magical functions. We are led to in-
quire: If vegetable and fertility rites are so important, how is it that there
are no departmental magicians of agriculture on record? Why does the
public magician only control the conditions of fertility and not fertility
itself? How can magical influence grow into political power? These ques-
tions seem at first sight to qualify and invalidate Frazer's theories of early
kingship and magic. Yet here again, recent results of field-work among
primitive people allow us to settle these doubts and cavils in a manner once
more triumphant for the book, which shows itself to have been ahead of
the material at the author's disposal.

In ethnographical researches done among some Papuo-Melanesian tribes
of Eastern New Guinea, I found myself at once in the thick of a social and
psychological situation such as is postulated by the Golden Bough. The
office of the chief coincides there with that of the public magician. To the
control of rain and sunshine the chief owes an enormous proportion of his
executive power, which he uses to strengthen his position and to enforce
his general will. A faithful disciple of the Golden Bough, I turned my
attention to the institutions associated with agriculture. Then gradually I
began to see that Frazer's theories of the sociologies of magic, of the role
of the public magician, of the departmental control of natural forces,
rested on much more solid foundations than he himself had been able to
realise with the material in hand, and that this can be demonstrated on the
book's own territory, that of vegetable cults. For not only do there exist
in these tribes departmental magical rites of fertility, not only are they the
most important ones, ranking even before the weather rites and always
carried out by the chief, but also we can study there the sociological
mechanism by which the garden magician obtains his political power.

In each community we find a garden magician, who performs his ritual
for public benefit. These functions are always vested in the headman of
the community. In villages which are capitals of a district and governed
by a chief, he himself carries out the magic of vegetation. In this role, the
headman or chief commands not only a high respect, as the man who has
in his hands the forces of fertility and who knows how to tap them, but
he also takes an actual lead in the practical pursuits accompanied by the

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magic. For the magical ritual is intimately bound up with the technical
activities. It imposes a regularity in time, and compels people to work in
order and in organised groups. This refers to several forms of public magic,
such as canoe-building, fishing, and overseas expeditions, but most con-
spicuously to garden magic. In this, the magician controls the work of
the whole community during the course of the year, gives the initiative to
the various stages, has the right of reprimand and punishment, is regarded
as the man responsible for success and failure, and receives tributes from
his fellow-villagers.

Here again we see that, starting from one of those theories of the Golden
Bough which go far ahead of the available evidence, field-work reaches
interesting and important discoveries. In this case it leads to the study of
primitive economics, a chapter very much neglected by the traveller and
amateur ethnographer, and even by the specialist, which promises, however,
to yield results of some importance. For I have no doubt that my con-
firmation of Sir James's theories from a limited ethnographical area will
be followed by other more important discoveries all the world over.

Thus the Golden Bough, far from being a classic in the sense of having
attained the fulness of its glory and deserving honourable rest, is a book
which still has some hard service in the field before it, a book which should
be in the kitbag of every ethnographic explorer. A modern ethnographer,
in his researches among savages, must, while making his observations, re-
main still in contact with theoretical literature in order to receive from it
constant inspiration and guidance, especially if he is bent on doing inten-
sive field-work, if he is willing and able to remain for months and years
among the same tribe and study it by means of their own language and by
personally taking part in the tribal life. In such study I derived constant
inspiration and benefit from the works of Westermarckj Karl Biicher,
Ratzel, Marett, Hubert and Mauss, Crawley and Rivers, some of which I
actually have re-read while in the field, others again in the intervals be-
tween my expeditions. Alas! at that time the twelve volumes of the
Golden Bough were too heavy and costly a burden to carry across sago
swamps, to paddle over lagoons in an out-rigger always ready to capsize,
or to keep in a tent or thatched hut by no means rain and insect-proof.
Now the more fortunate field-worker can easily take with him, handle,
and constantly refer to the new, one-volume, abridged edition.

To the student in his library, this abridged edition will no doubt only
serve as a handy guide, as a sort of explicit digest, or to the beginner as a
preliminary introduction. The full version is indispensable to the student,
and it is also the most fascinating and instructive reading to the layman.
But no doubt many a one who was at first shy of tackling directly the
Golden Bough will, in the short edition, find a bridge to the full work,
which is not only the most important achievement of Sir James Frazer,
but also the last word of modern anthropological scholarship.

ON SIR JAMES FRAZER

275

llil

THE DEEPER CRITICISM OF THE BIBLE

Though the Golden Bough will always rank as the greatest and most
original achievement of Sir James Frazer, while again in Totemism and
Exogamy he has given his most important contribution to scientific
anthropology and sociology, the present book on folklore in the Old Testa-
ment, now abridged into one volume, makes an even greater appeal to the
reader's general or philosophical interest than the other works, for it deals
with the most important fact in human tradition and literature, and one
associated with intimate personal experiences of all of us. In a field ap-
parently made almost completely sterile by criticism, higher criticism, and
uncritical speculations, Sir James contrives to revive dead questions and to
reshape facts and situations familiar, yet always incomprehensible, until
now they receive a new meaning in the light of comparative anthropology.
In this work the learned author once more vindicates for anthropology its
claim to be the ablest interpreter of all the documents of human tradition
and culture.

In the opening chapters Sir James discusses the myth of myths — the
biblical story of creation. This story has been lived through by every one
of us. Every picture, every detail, has its deep, emotional associations,
from earliest infancy, when they were taken as the paramount fairy tale,
until the time when their literal sense had to be interpreted, perhaps even
finally rejected. But at no time in a man's life of belief or doubt are the
details of this myth mere incidents of a story or a fiction. The childish
and naive visions of paradise, the fears of punishment, the hopes of re-
demption, are all bound up with the great drama of Paradise Lost.

Yet, looking back to the youthful times when the fire of faith burned
high, and when the deep, uncritical belief made the figures of paradise live
and act in a world real and near to us, we can still perceive certain flicker-
ing shadows, certain blots on the picture. Besides the comprehensible and
at times lovable figure of God, within the sunny garden where we felt
quite at home with our first parents, there grows the strange tree with its
dangerous fruits, there creeps the serpent around it, there happen such
crude incidents as the moulding of Adam in clay, the transformation of a
small bone into our first mother, and other events, showing a strange in-
consistency of God and his unyielding vindictiveness, and creating hesi-
tancy and lurking doubts.

Here Sir James takes us back once more to the vague apprehensions of

This article was a review of Folk-Lore in the Old Testament: Studies in
Comparative Religion, Legend, and Law by Sir James George Frazer; it appeared
in Nature, May 3, 1924 (Vol. 113, No. 2844), pp. 63 3-34, and is reprinted by
permission.

27G

CULTURE AND MYTH

our youth, revives our doubts, and formulates our questions anew. As we
follow him, then, into the various parts of the world, where the Tree of
Life grows on its native soil, where the first human beings spring naturally
out of red clay, where the serpent beguiles the ancestors of man with good
reason and to a sensible purpose, we begin to understand those incidents as
they appear in a fragmentary and garbled form in our Bible. Above all,
Divinity himself appears in a clearer light, in which he moves with more
dignity, acts with greater consistency, and is led by a kinder purpose.

The mark of Cain, the covenant of Abraham, the tricks of Jacob and
of Joseph; the vicissitudes of Moses, of the Judges and the Kings, the
Witch of Endor, all their mysterious actions, their little lapses from morals
and straightforward honesty, are analysed in the remaining chapters of
the book. Sometimes Sir James shows us that the narrator of the biblical
stories was aware of a certain sociological and customary context, which
he took for granted with his readers, but which for us has to be recon-
structed in each case by the hand of the skilful anthropologist. Sometimes
a detail, obscure in itself, can be reinterpreted in anthropological terms, as
when we realise that the mark of Cain might have been a disguise of
immunity, or the kid-skins of Jacob may correspond to a rite of new birth.

The deeper biblical criticism of Sir James is not directed thus to the
whitewashing of the biblical story. The blots on the Bible are not rubbed
away, but painted into their full original forms, with the strong, varie-
gated colours borrowed by Sir James Frazer from the peoples of all races,
climates, and levels of civilisation.

There is no other work in which Sir James's admirable style, his quiet
sense of humour, his true humanism are used to a more important purpose
than in the present one. From his impartial and restrained attitude it is
impossible to gauge whether he approaches the subject as a rationalist or as
a mystic, or as a modern agnostic, who is neither entirely committed to
reason nor absolutely absorbed by mysticism. The bigoted and dogmatic
believer and the extreme rationalist may remain dissatisfied with the tone
of the book. But both those who study the Bible for religious inspiration
and those who regard it as a mere anthropological document will derive
not only profit but also artistic pleasure from the present book. Both will
be interested and grateful for the removal of absurdities, the imparting of
a fuller and deeper meaning to the bibUcal account, for bringing God
nearer to man, the creature to its Maker, whoever might be believed to be
the one and who the other. iNowadays, when the modern believer seeks
revelation in reality rather than reality in revelation, and when the modern
agnostic has ceased to deny all reaUty to revelation, the two can meet on
friendly terms in Sir James Frazer's anthropological workshop and discuss
their differences amicably.

This makes one reflect on the distance between modern agnosticism and
that of a generation ago. The longest chapter of this volume embodies the

ON SIR JAMES FRAZER

277

Huxley memorial lecture, delivered by Frazer in 1916 before the Royal
Anthropological Institute. It treats of the subject of the Great Flood, on
which Huxley himself had written the famous essay. The great agnostic
naturalist had still to combat the literal acceptance of the biblical story
and show its absurdity in the light of geology and natural science. To-day,
it is true, some people still believe in a flat earth and a universal deluge —
but Huxley's writings have done their work, and he would scarcely write
on the same lines now as he did in his time.

The modern agnostic does not take much trouble any more to establish
the absurdity of biblical stories literally taken. He is not now disturbed by
the absurdity of belief. Sometimes he even doubts whether his own dis-
belief is less absurd or more rational than the credulity of his opponent. He
merely knows that he is entirely incapable of those acts of faith which give
his luckier neighbour so much happiness, which seem to reconcile him to
all the trials of life by apparently priceless promises of some future ex-
istence and spiritual compensation. The difference, he knows, cannot be
mastered by reason or combated by rational argument. It lies deep in man's
emotional constitution, and it sunders the black sheep from the white by
an unbridgeable chasm.

It is the nature of the difference between the two which interests the
modern disbeliever. He is fascinated by religious phenomena rather than
shocked by them, and he contemplates and studies them with the same
intensity of interest, almost with the same love and veneration, as the
religious man. It is not the absurdity of the Great Flood which he wants to
have proved; that he takes for granted. He wishes to find the foundations
of this belief in the depths of human nature or in the vicissitudes of
human history; and in this, Frazer's treatment of the Great Flood is more
actual and modern than Huxley's, though not greater or more brilliant,
for that is impossible! Each marks a milestone on the road of scientific and
philosophic progress, each sums up an epoch in the relations between sci-
ence and religion.

III!

FRAZER ON TOTEMISM

Half a century ago, in 1887, there appeared in Edinburgh a small booklet
entitled "Totemism." It was destined to exercise an influence on the sci-
ence of man second only to that of another masterpiece by the same author
— I mean of course Frazer's Golden Bough. Both works produced an im-
mediate impression at home among scholars and abroad among workers in

This article was a review of Totemica: A Supplement to Totemism and
Exogamy by Sir James George Frazer; it appeared in Nature, March 19, 193 8
(Vol. 141, No. 3 568), pp. 489-91, and is reprinted by permission.

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CULTURE AND MYTH

the field. Both have since reappeared in a much fuller form; the first as
Totemism and Exogamy (in four volumes, 1910) ; the second as a series of
twelve volumes jointly named The Golden Bough (1911-15).

Each of the two great works has now received a valuable epilogue:
Aftermath, a supplement to The Golden Bough, published last year; and
now Totemica, giving the finishing touch to Frazer's work on totemism.
To those of us who owe the main inspiration of our life-work to Frazer
these recent events are both welcome and significant. The additional vol-
umes bear witness not only to the vigour and creative power of the author
but also to the value and vitality of the British school of anthropology.

Frazer, more than anyone else, has given the science of man wide cur-
rency among cultured people all over the world. It is largely due to the
literary charm of his style and the profoundness of his insight that anthro-
pological books are now extensively read, appreciated, and enjoyed. He
also, above all others, has brought anthropology into line with classical
scholarship. Nor is it an accident that the first systematic and planned
scientific expedition was undertaken from Cambridge, Frazer's spiritual
home and personal abode. The work of Spencer and Gillen in Central
Australia, the researches of [John] Roscoe among the Baganda, the Afri-
can classics of Smith and Dale, of Rattray, and of Junod, throughout bear
witness to Frazer's genius and vision.

The direct imprint of Frazer's ideas on anthropological theory is not less
remarkable. Take the range of its subject-matter: magic and kinship, social
organization and the clan system, political power and problems of early
science, of ritual and religion: in all these Frazer has given at least the
initiative and in most cases the fullest and most adequate treatment of
each subject. When the great Frenchman, Durkheim, was shaping his
theory of primitive religion, he had in The Golden Bough an encyclopaedia
of fact upon which to draw, and a compendium of theoretical points of
view to inspire him. When Freud made his attempt to apply psycho-
analysis to the "cave man" and his murderous and incestuous offspring, he
turned to Frazer's Totemism and Exogamy and to The Golden Bough,
Most modern schools of anthropology, whether "functionalism" or "struc-
turalism," the search for "patterns of culture" or hunt for "tribal gen-
iuses," largely depend for their inspiration on Frazer.

The present book is a review of evidence on totemism which has accu-
mulated since 1910. It is arranged geographically, pride of place being
naturally given to Australia: ". . . for it is to AustraHa, with its varied
and very primitive forms of Totemism, that we must ultimately look, if
we are ever to find a clue to the problem of the origin and meaning of the
institution" (from the preface). From that continent some new and
important facts have been brought to light in field-work organized from
Sydney by Prof. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and his successor Dr. A. P. Elkin.
Some of the discoveries, such as those by R. Piddington and P. M. Kaberry,

ON SIR JAMES FRAZER

279

W. E. H. Stanner and U. McConnel shed a new light on our theoretical
conception of totemism.

Readers of Frazer, that is, all anthropologists, will note with interest
that the new evidence establishes the widespread occurrence of two facts:
the ignorance of physical paternity and the magical ceremonies for increas-
ing totemic species. It is on these two ethnographic facts that Frazer
founded his hypotheses of the origins of totemism.

Equally rich and interesting is the evidence from Oceania. It has been
known since the times of Codrington that developed forms as well as the
rudiments of totemism are to be found in Melanesia. Its occurrence among
the Polynesians, foreshadowed by Rivers, has since been established through
the recent researches of Drs. R. W. Firth and H. I. Hogbin. The data from
Africa and India which Frazer is able to register in the present book,
important as they are, do not add anything revolutionary to our knowl-
edge. America, the continent in which totemism was discovered, has
yielded only twelve pages.

Frazer himself keeps aloof in this book from controversy; nor does he
work out his earlier theories any further. It is tempting, therefore, to in-
quire how far these have been strengthened or modified by recent dis-
coveries and developments in anthropological doctrine. In his first theory,
dating back to the original book of 1887, Frazer finds the origins of
totemism in the widespread belief in the external soul, a belief in which
primitive man associates his welfare and destiny with some symbolic object.
Organized on a communal scale, that is, associating a whole clan with an
animal or plant species, this belief becomes in substance totemism.

Frazer himself has discarded this view as a theory of the origins of
totemism. We cannot, however, dismiss it as a contribution towards the
understanding of the primitive tendency to symbolize, nor yet of the con-
stitution of primitive society. An external symbol seems to be indispensable
in the integration of primitive, and for that matter even of civilized,
groups. Durkheim, developing Frazer's theories more fully, has rightly
insisted on the functional value of the Australian cfmringa and of our
modern flag, of the medieval scutcheon, and the crown and sceptre of con-
temporary monarchs. The appreciation of social symbolism, of the concept
of the external soul in its wider setting, reveals to us some of the workings
of the primitive, that is, essentially human mind, and of group integration
at all levels of development. For the progress of civilization in a way
consists in the imprint of things spiritual being given to matter, while
shaped matter fashions spiritual processes in turn. The very essence of
symbolism in thought, in speech and writing, in liturgy and in art is,
after all, nothing else but the concept of "external soul" developed and
refined beyond recognition and yet without any breach of continuity. Thus
Frazer's first hypothesis can be regarded as the starting-point of some of
the most important developments in the study of culture.

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The second theory, formulated by Frazer after the sensational discoveries
of Spencer and Gillen in Australia, links up totemism directly with magic.
The Arunta and allied tribes perform magical ceremonies of totemic in-
crease in which every clan acts as a co-operative unit in a vast enterprise of
multiplying edible and otherwise useful animals and plants. The means to
this practical end appear to us completely fictitious. This, however, does
not detract from their social and even educational value. They bring home
to the participants the importance of co-operation, the necessity of obeying
rules and following tribal tradition — an aspect of ceremonial life brought
out by Prof. Radcliffe-Brown in the second part of his Andaman Islanders.

The role of magic as an all-important organizing and integrating force
can be seen even more clearly at a level higher than that of the Australian
and Andaman islander. In the Trobriand Islands the garden magician, in
virtue of his mystical power over Nature, becomes the leader and organizer
of the enterprise: he acts as the agricultural expert and supervisor of work
(cf. Coral Gardens by the reviewer). So also the man who magically con-
trols wind and weather, the dangers of the open seas, and the vicissitudes
of the commercial moods of his trading partners, acts as captain of the
canoe and master of an overseas expedition {Argonauts of the Western
Pacific). As regards Polynesia, the connexion between magic and practical
activities has been well documented by Dr. R. W. Firth in his Primitive
Economics of the New Zealand Maori ( 1929) .

In his third and final theory of totemic origins Frazer reveals the signifi-
cance of the primitive ignorance of physiological paternity. Here once
more the Central Australians provide the cue. They believe that conception
is due to the entry into a woman's womb of a totemic spirit-child. These
are believed to reside in sacred spots, primarily deposits of bull-roarers
(churinga) , where mythical ancestors, half -human, half-totemic, had left
their souls and their magical implements. This belief, argues Frazer, is
sufficient to explain the reason why primitive man regarded himself as
mystically bound up with an animal, plant, or inanimate object. It ac-
counts also for the formation of clan bonds, and it explains why, through
his totemic kinship with natural phenomena, primitive man claimed magi-
cal control over natural processes and objects.

At the time when Frazer was setting forth his theory, he was really
generalizing boldly — some might even say, too boldly — from evidence con-
fined to one insignificant tribelet in the deserts of Central Australia. Yet
here once more Frazer's genius had anticipated the course of future dis-
coveries. Animistic beliefs about conception have since been discovered in
one tribe of Australia after another until their distribution map almost
covers the continent. They have been signalled by Rivers from Melanesia,
by the present reviewer from eastern New Guinea, and by Dr. Hogbin
from Polynesia.

It is interesting to note that simultaneously with Frazer's Totemica

ON SIR JAMES FRAZER

281

there appears a monograph deaHng with totemic paternity in aboriginal
Austraha. It is really a monument to Frazer's insight and vision, and to
the value of his theories of totemism (M. F. Ashley-Montagu, Coming into
Being amoftg the Aiisfralian Aborigines, 1937). Dr. Ashley-Montagu con-
cludes that, with very few and insignificant exceptions, "the orthodox
doctrine of each tribe" in Australia is "that children are the result of the
immigration into a woman of a spirit child which is of an origin going
back into the far distant mythological past. . . . Thus it is that by means
of this belief in the immigration of spirit children into women the proper
totemic and moiety membership of the child is secured" {op. cit., p. 199).

Taking any one of the three hypotheses in isolation, it might be con-
tended that none of them alone is sufficient to account for the birth and
nature of totemism. Taken in conjunction, they give a full and adequate
explanation of the phenomenon. They all centre round the conception,
almost the definition, of totemism which runs through Frazer's theoretical
treatment and gives the perspective to his magnificent edifice of fact:
totemism expresses ritually and mythologically man's selective interest in a
number of animal or plant species; it discloses the primitive's profound
conviction that he is in body and mind akin to the relevant factors of his
environment. These he is able to control magically in virtue of the kinship;
and towards them he has to observe a religious attitude of reverence and
consideration.

In any theory of totemism, we have first and foremost to account for
the linking of man with environmental forces and principles. In his third
theory, Frazer makes the important suggestion that the primitive igno-
rance of reproductive physiology combined with beliefs of spirit-child in-
carnation is the natural basis of totemic kinship between man and Nature.
This bond was to primitive man not merely an intellectual affirmation and
a sentimental attitude; it became above all a means of action. Since his
interest in his surroundings was pragmatic, that is, nutritive and utilitar-
ian, and his earliest means of control magical, the main function of to-
temic belief consisted in the ritual of magical increase directed upon useful
or practically important factors of the environment. Thus we are led
inevitably to Frazer's second hypothesis, in placing the first within the
context of primitive thought, feeling, and action.

Such terms and concepts, however, as "principles of fertility," "useful
environmental factors" go beyond primitive man's intellectual horizon. He
has to use concrete and tangible symbols, both ritually and psychologically.
The principle of ritual symbolism, that is, the belief in the external soul,
on which Frazer lays emphasis in his first theory, is the indispensable
corollary to our understanding of the magical function of totemism and of
its conceptual origins. The Australian churinga, for example, is the proto-
type of the external soul. In native belief it is also the main reservoir of
spirit-children. In the increase ceremonies it becomes the main instrument

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of magical eflScacy. This small object embodies as it were and epitomizes
Frazer's hypotheses of totemic origin; and, let us remember, to the Central
Australian the chiiringa is the most sacred and important object in the
whole universe. It represents to him tradition, magical force, and the social
unity of the clan, condensed but all-powerful. It stands for a long line of
ancestors; it gives man the means of securing wealth and welfare; it is the
source of human fertility. In "singing" to his churinga, in his mythologies
and ritual actions, the Central Australian pragmatically bears witness to
the intuition and insight of the great historian of totemism.

Frazer's theories explain not only the origins of totemism but also its
functions. From the survival point of view, it is vital that man's interest
in the practically indispensable species should never abate, that his belief in
his capacity to control them should give him strength and endurance in his
pursuits and stimulate his observation and knowledge of the habits and
nature of animals and plants. Totemism, in the light of Frazer's theory,
appears thus as a blessing bestowed by religion on primitive man's efforts
in dealing with his useful surroundings, upon his "struggle for existence."
At the same time it develops his reverence for animals and plants on which
he depends, to which he feels in a way grateful, and yet the destruction of
which is a necessity to him

Frazer's interpretation of totemism gives us still the best insight into
the earliest phases of religion, of man's pious attitude of dependence, of his
early seeking for permanent tangible values instinct with spiritual and
moral substance. Within the framework of Frazer's interpretation we see
how in totemism the beginnings of ethical attitudes are developed through
the magical co-operation of clan members, and of the clans for the welfare
of the whole community. Frazer has also shown that totemism, in its in-
sistence on material symbolism, contains perhaps the earliest rudiments of
sacred metaphor, that is, of abstraction, with all its possibilities of develop-
ment into ritual, on one hand, and science on the other.

Frazer's contribution has been as essential to the progress in empirical
field-work as to our theoretical understanding of primitive man. More than
that, in his great works. The Golden Bough, Totemism and Exogamy, The
Tear of the Dead, The Belief in Immortality and Folk-Lore in the Old
Testament, Frazer has given us in outline a lasting philosophy of culture
capable of indefinite development.

The extraordinary sympathy and insight with which the leader of the
British school has treated primitive ways of thought and action, his
fundamental humanism, his scientific acumen and artistic intuition have
allowed him to reveal most of the problems with which modern anthro-
pology is concerned. Frazer's vision has also led him to foresee the main
currents of empirical discovery and to lay down the foundations of the
comparative science of human cultures.

IIIIII!! 13 llllllilllllilllll

ELEMENTARY FORMS OF RELIGIOUS LIFE

It is superfluous to draw the attention of students to the importance of
Prof. Durkheim's new work, for the appearance of a large volume from
the pen of the leader of the French sociological school is a scientific
event. The group of savants connected with I'Annee Sociologique has
achieved remarkable success in dealing with problems in primitive religion,
and we have to thank it especially for the essays of MM. Hubert and
Mauss on Sacrifice and Magic, and the articles of M. Durkheim on the
Definition of Religious Phenomena, Classifications in Primitive Thought,
and Totemism, and of M. Hertz on Funerary Rites.

To Prof. Durkheim the religious is the social par excellence. The dis-
tinctive characters of social and religious phenomena practically coincide.
The social is defined, in Regies de la methode sociologique y by its "ex-
teriority to individual minds,*' by its "coercive action" upon individual
minds; the religious, which is also "external" to individual minds, by
its "obligatoriness." ^ It is obvious, therefore, that the present volume
is of special importance, being the systematic and final expression of the
best organized sociological school extant on a subject specially important
to, and specially well mastered by, this school.

There is yet another reason why this book should particularly arouse
the interest of the sociologist. It is Prof. Durkheim's first attempt to
treat a "problem of origins" of such a fundamental and general social
phenomenon as religion. In his methodological work. Regies de la methode
sociologique, he has strenuously insisted upon the treatment of social
phenomena "as things," upon the necessity of excluding all forms of
psychological explanations from sociology.^ This postulate undoubtedly

This article was a review of Les Formes elementaires de la vie religieuse: Le
Sy Sterne totemique en Australie by Emile Durkheim, and appeared in Folk-Lore,
'December 1913 (Vol. XXIV, No. 4), pp. 525-31; it is reprinted by permission
of The Folk-Lore Society.

^ See "Sur la Definition des phenomenes religieux," in I'Annee Sociologique, Vol. II.

^ Op. cit.. Table of Contents, cap. ii.

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CULTURE AND MYTH

appears to many a rule rather artificial and barren in its practical applica-
tions— and especially to British anthropologists, who prefer psychological
explanations of origins; and this volume enables us to judge as to the
success of his method.

The book has several aspects and aims. It attempts to state the essential
and fundamental elements of religion, being thus a revision of the author's
former definition of t/oe religious; it investigates the origins of religion;
it gives a theory of totemism; and it is designed as a substantial contribu-
tion to philosophy.

All these problems M. Durkheim seeks to solve by an analysis of the
beliefs of practically one single tribe, the Arunta. His keen eye detects
in the facts we owe to Messrs. Spencer and Gillen much that is not
patent to a less acute mind, and his researches through their two volumes,
completed by the records made by Mr. [Carl] Strehlow, yield him an
abundant crop of theoretical results. Nevertheless, to base most far-reach-
ing conclusions upon practically a single instance seems open to very
serious objections. It is extremely dangerous to accept any people as
"the absolutely primitive type of mankind," or as "the best example of
elementary forms of social organization and creed," and to forego the
verification of conclusions by other available instances. For example,
when M. Durkheim, in trying to determine the fundamental aspect of
religion, finds it in an universal and absolute bipartition of men, things,
and ideas into "sacre et profane" (pp. 50 et seq.) , he may refer to a
well-known passage by the Australian ethnographers,^ and, in fact, a
sharp division of all things into religious and non-religious seems to be a
very marked feature of the social life of Central Australian natives. But
is it universal? I feel by no means persuaded. In reading the detailed
monograph by Dr. and Mrs. Seligman about the Veddas, no such division
is suggested as existing among that extremely primitive people. Again, it
would be difficult to maintain the existence of such a separation amongst
the Melanesian peoples of whom we have very copious records. This may
be due to a gap in our information, but, anyhow, it is not admissible to
base a system upon a mere assumption, instead of on certain knowledge.

One does not feel quite easy, also, about the assumption of totemism
being the elementary form of religion (liv. I, cap. iv), especially as here
again we find the investigation limited to the beliefs of the Central Aus-
tralians.

Prof. Durkheim's theory of totemism is that the essence of totemism
lies in the totemic symbol and badge, and that the sacredness of the
totem is derived from the sacredness of the badge. A reconsideration,
from this new point of view, of the problem of totemism, grown slightly
wearisome ov/ing to "totemic hyper-production" in recent times, can-
not fail to be stimulating. M. Durkheim and his school accept, as is well

^ The Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 33.

ELEMENTARY FORMS OF RELIGIOUS LIFE

285

known, Dr. Marett's theory of preanimism. The totemic principle, the
totemic force, is for Prof. Durkheim akin in nature to mana. This princi-
ple, inherent in the first place in the totemic badge and symbol, then in
the species, and then in the clansmen, is thus explained: "Le dieu du clan,
le principe totemique, ne peut done etre autre chose que le clan lui-
meme, mais hypostasie et represente aux imaginations sous les especes
sensibles du vegetal ou de I'animal qui sert de totem" (p. 295). ["The
god of the clan, the totemic principle, can therefore be only the clan
itself, but hypostatized and manifested to the imagination in the physical
form of the plant or animal that serves as the totem."] Undoubtedly
this is a very interesting conception of religion, foreshadowed in our
author's former works, in which so much stress is laid on the social nature
of the religious — but here plainly expressed for the first time.

M. Durkheim proceeds to show how it comes about that society is the
real substance, the materia prima, of the human conception of divinity.
"Une societe a tout ce qu'il faut pour eveiller dans les esprits, par la
seule action qu'elle exerce sur eux, la sensation du divin; car elle est a ses
membres ce qu'un dieu est a ses fideles" {ibid.). ["A society, by its
very power over the minds of people, has everything that is necessary to
awaken in them the sensation of the divine; for society is to its members
what a god is to his faithful."] Again, "Parce qu'elle a une nature qui
lui est propre, differente de notre nature d'individu, elle poursuit des fins
qui lui sont egalement speciales; mais, comme elle ne peut les atteindre
que par notre intermediaire, elle reclame imperieusement notre concours"
{ibid.). ["Because it has its own nature, different from ours as individuals,
it pursues ends that are peculiar to it; but as it can attain them only
through our intermediation, it imperiously demands our co-operation."]
Let us note that here society is conceived to be the logical subject of the
statement; an active being endowed with will, aims, and desires. If we are
not to take it as a figure of speech (and M. Durkheim decidedly does not
give it as such), we must label it an entirely metaphysical conception.
Society conceived as a collective being, endowed with all properties of
individual consciousness, will be rejected even by those sociologists who
accept a "collective consciousness" in the sense of a sum of conscious
states (as it is accepted, for example, by Messrs. McDougall, Ellwood,
Davis, and, partly, by Simmel and Wundt). But, a few pages further,
we read a statement which seems to allow of another interpretation.
Speaking of "manieres d'agir auxquelles la societe est assez fortement
attachee pour les imposer a ses membres," he says: "Les representations
qui les expriment en chacun de nous ont done un intensite a laquelle
des etats de conscience purement prives ne sauraient atteindre; car elles
sont fortes des innombrables representations individuelles qui ont servi
a former chacune d'elles. C'est la societe qui parle par la bouche de ceux
qui les afiirment en notre presence" (p. 297). [Speaking of "modes of

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CULTURE AND MYTH

action to which a society is strongly enough attached to impose them on
its members," he says: "The ideas that express them for each of us have
therefore an intensity to which purely private states of consciousness
could not attain, for they are strong in innumerable individual images
which have served to form each of them. It is society that speaks through
the mouths of those who affirm them in our presence."] Here we stand
before a dilemma: either this phrase means that "social ideas" possess a
specific character, because the individual who conceives them has the
consciousness of being backed up by society in his opinion, in which case
the statement is perfectly empirical; or the statement implies the con-
ception of a non-empirical action of society upon the individual conscious-
ness, in which case it conveys no scientific meaning.

The writer expresses himself again on the subject, from the genetic
point of view: "En un mot, quand une chose est I'objet d'un etat de
I'opinion, la representation qu'en a chaque individu tient de ses origines,
des conditions dans lesquelles elle a pris naissance, une puissance d'action
que sentent ceux-la memes qui ne s'y soumettent pas" (p. 2.97). ["In
a word, when an opinion exists about a thing, the idea that each individual
has of it comes from its origins, from the conditions giving birth to it,
which are a force for action which even those who do not submit to it
feel."] Here the author stands in front of the real problem. What are
these specific social conditions in which arise "social consciousness," and
consequently religious ideas? His answer is that these conditions are
realized whenever society is actually gathered, in all big social gatherings:
"Au sein d'une assemblee qu'echauffe une passion commune, nous devenons
susceptibles de sentiments et d'actes dont nous sommes incapables quand
nous sommes reduits a nos seules forces, et quand I'assemblee est dissoute,
quand, nous retrouvant seul avec nous-memes, nous retombons a notre
niveau ordinaire, nous pouvons mesurer alors toute la hauteur dont nous
avions ete souleve au-dessus de nous-meme" (p. 299). ["In the midst of
an assembly inflamed by a common passion, we become capable of feelings
and acts of which we are incapable when we are reduced to our own
strength and when the meeting is over; when we are once more alone with
ourselves and fall back to our ordinary level, we can then measure the
height to which we had been raised above ourselves."]

This answer is somewhat disappointing. First of all, we feel a little
suspicious of a theory which sees the origins of religion in crowd phe-
nomena. Again, from the point of view of method, we are at a loss.
Above we had been dealing (with some diflSculties) with a transcendental
collective subject, with a "society which was the creator of religious
ideas": "Au reste, tant dans le present que dans I'histoire, nous voyons
sans cesse la societe creer de toutes pieces des choses sacrees" (p. 304).
["Moreover, as much in the present as in history, we see society end-
lessly creating sacred things of all objects."] Then society was the

ELEMENTARY FORMS OF RELIGIOUS LIFE

287

divinity itself, i.e. it was not only creator, but the object of its creation,
or at least reflected in this object. But here society is no more the logical
and grammatical subject of the metaphysical assertions, but not even
the object of these assertions. It only furnishes the external conditions,
in which ideas about the divine may and must originate. Thus Prof.
Durkheim's views present fundamental inconsistencies. Society is the
source of religion, the origin of the divine; but is it "origin" in the
sense that "the collective subject . . . thinks and creates the religious
ideas"? This would be a metaphysical conception deprived of any em-
pirical meaning; or is society itself the "god," as is implied in the state-
ment that the "totemic principle is the clan," thought under the aspect
of a totem? That reminds one somewhat of Hegel's Absolute, "thinking
itself" under one aspect or another. Or, finally, is society, in its crowd-
aspect, nothing more than the atmosphere in which individuals create
religious ideas? The last is the only scientifically admissible interpreta-
tion of the obscure manner in which M. Durkheim expounds the essence
of his theories.

Let us see how our author grapples with actual and concrete prob-
lems, and which of the three versions of "origins" just mentioned he
applies to the actual facts of Australian totemism. He starts with the
remark already quoted about the double form of the social life of the
Central Australian tribesman. The natives go through two periodically
changing phases of dispersion and agglomeration. The latter consist
chiefly, indeed, almost exclusively, of religious festivities. This corre-
sponds to the above-mentioned statement that crowd originates religion:
"Or, le seul fait de I'agglomeration agit comme un excitant exception-
ellement puissant. Une fois les individus assembles, il se degage de leur
rapprochement une sorte d'electricite qui les transporte vite a un degre
extraordinaire d'exaltation. . . . On congoit sans peine que, parvenu a
cet etat d'exaltation . . . I'homme ne se connaisse plus. Se sentant
domine, entraine par une sorte de pouvoir exterieur qui le fait penser et
agir autrement qu'en temps normal, il a naturellement I'impression de
n'etre plus lui-meme. Il lui semble etre devenu un etre nouveau: les
decorations dont il s'affuble, les sortes de masques dont il se recouvre le
visage figurent materiellement cette transformation interieure, plus en-
core qu'ils ne contribuent a la determiner . . . tout se passe, comme
s'il etait reellement transporte dans un monde special, entierement dif-
ferent de celui ou il vit d'ordinaire. . . . C'est done dans ces milieux
sociaux effervescents et de cette effervescence meme que parait etre nee
I'idee religieuse. Et ce qui tend a confirmer que telle en est bien I'origine,
c'est que, en Australie, I'activite proprement rehgieuse est presque tout
entiere concentree dans les moments oix se tiennent ces assemblees" (pp.
308, 312, 313). ["Now, the mere fact of gathering together acts as an
exceptionally powerful stimulus. When the individuals are assembled a

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CULTURE AND MYTH

sort of electricity is released from their drawing together that quickly
transports them to an extraordinary degree of exaltation. ... It is
easy to see that when he has reached this state of exaltation . . . man
no longer knows himself. Feeling himself dominated, swept along by a
kind of external power that makes him think and act differently than
on normal occasions, he naturally has the impression of no longer being
himself. He seems to have become a new being: the decorations with
which he rigs himself out, the kind of masks with which he covers his
face, materially represent this internal transformation, the more since
they do not contribute to creating it . . . everything happens as if he
were really transported into a special world entirely different from that
in which he ordinarily lives. ... It is therefore in these effervescent
social spheres and from this effervescence itself that the religious idea
appears to be born. And what tends to confirm the fact that this is
indeed the origin is that in Australia religious activity itself is almost
entirely concentrated in the moments when these assemblies are held."]

To sum up, theories concerning one of the most fundamental aspects
of religion cannot be safely based on an analysis of a single tribe, as
described in practically a single ethnographical work. It should be noted
that the really empirical version of this theory of origins is by no means
a realization of the ''objective" method, in which M. Durkheim enjoins
treating social facts as things and avoiding individual psychological
interpretations. In his actual theory he uses throughout individual
psychological explanations. It is the modification of the individual con-
sciousness in big gatherings, the "mental effervescence," which is as-
sumed to be the source of "the religious." The sacred and divine are
the psychological categories governing ideas originated in religiously
inspired crowds. These ideas are collective only in so far as they are
general, i.e. common in all members of the crowd. None the less we
arrive at understanding their nature by individual analysis, by psycho-
logical introspection, and not by treating those phenomena as "things."
Finally, to trace back the origins of all religious phenomena to crowd
manifestations seems to narrow down extremely both the forms of social
influence upon religion, and the sources from which man can draw his
rehgious inspiration. "Mental effervescence" in large gatherings can
hardly be accepted as the only source of religion.

But, while one is bound to criticize certain points of principle in
Prof. Durkheim's work, it must be added that the work contains in a
relatively small bulk such thorough analyses of theories of religious
facts — several of which, of first-rate importance, are original contribu-
tions by Prof. Durkheim or his school — as could only be given by one
of the acutest and most brilliant hving sociologists, and that these by
themselves would make the book a contribution to science of the greatest
importance.

iiiiim 14 iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

THE LIFE OF MYTH

Myth, clothing the brutal and naked beauty of primeval thought with
the dignity of tradition and the majesty of sacredness, exerts a singular
attraction upon the human mind, civilized and sophisticated, as well as
simple and untutored. The mixture of incompatible extremes, of the
shameful and the holy, the graceful and the raw, the fleshly and the
spiritual, the tragic and the clownish, surrounds myth with an atmos-
phere of mystery and gives it a meaning which has always inspired the
artist and puzzled the student. From myth and folk tale have sprung
the earliest as well as the ripest products of art: the savage enactment
of myth at initiation and tribal feast as well as the tragedies of ancient
Greece, the Elizabethan theatre, and the Wagnerian musical drama. In
primitive, in pagan, and in Christian painting and sculpture, myth has
supplied most of the subject matter and atmosphere.

The present volume, opening up one of the most wonderful and, for
many reasons, least known regions of folk-lore, will be equally welcome
to the scholar and the man of letters. It is a comprehensive survey of
the mythological Weltanschammg of the Siberian and Finno-Ugric peo-
ples, based on a polyglotic and extensive knowledge of the subject and,
to a great extent also, on personal field work. It will be an important
addition to the subject of general mythology, on which we have material
enough, but not of the right sort.

The enormous variety of theories in comparative mythology and the
wide range of opinions as to the true nature of a sacred tale is bewilder-
ing and disheartening. It shows how difficult to understand is the purely
theoretical problem set by these tales, which come from a distant past
and in which we seem to hear things both strange and familiar, almost
incomprehensible messages which yet seem to convey a profound and

This article was a review of The Mythology of All Races, Vol. TV , Finno-
Ugric, Siberian, by Uno Holmberg, and appeared in The Saturday Review of
Literature, April 7, 1928 (Vol. IV, No. 37), pp. 73 8-39.

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CULTURE AND MYTH

inevitable meaning. There are theories which make folk-lore into a
muddled natural science, and the psychoanalytic interpretations which
make myths into day-dreams charged with an incestuous desire; opinions
which consider legends as but a slightly mangled tribal history, and
others which make myth the outcome of unbridled imagination. At
times myths are dismissed as the mystifications of priestly cunning, or
again as a primitive lapsjis linguae — the self-deception of the primitive
mind by a self-made metaphor.

Most theories credit the savage with a too great propensity for arm-
chair philosophizing and at the same time ascribe a too childish outlook
to him. In fact he is not so silly as naively to personify natural objects,
or to ignore the difference between men and beasts, animate and in-
animate objects. Nor is he duped by his metaphors any more easily than
is civilized man. On the other hand, he is neither idle nor speculative
enough to spin out fantastic, semi-poetical explanations and rhapsodies;
to standardize his day-dreams, or to record his tribal histories. His sense
of historical accuracy and his interest in reconstructing the past is on
the whole extraordinarily weak, as witness the almost complete absence
of historical accounts from the immediate past, and the entire unreli-
ability of such tales as can be checked from European chronicles. As to
day-dreams in myth, the psychoanalytic theory stands and falls with
the assumption of a "race memory" and a "race unconscious" which
will be accepted by few anthropologists who do not belong to the inner
ring of ardent Freudians.

The fact is that learned antiquarians, inspired psychologists, and
vigorous protagonists of the "historical method" have all poured out
their own opinions as to what the savage means by his story, why he
tells it, and in what manner he relates his mythopoeic phantasies to
reality. But they failed to ask the savage himself, or to look into the
facts for an answer.

Myths in primitive culture are told with a purpose, and they are
deeply rooted in the savage's interest and his social organization and
culture. But the links which bind folk-lore to the rest of native hfe,
the threads by which they are woven into the social fabric, have not
only so far been ignored by the ethnographer, but have actually been
severed by him. Stories have been taken down without any cultural
context and projected out of native life into the ethnographer's note-
book. Volumes of folk-lore have been pubHshed quite recently by first
class ethnographers, in which the texts are given, as if from the begin-
ning they had led a flat existence on paper (as for example, in Boas's
Tshimshian Mythology or Rattray's Ashanti Proverbs).

And we find hardly any record of field work in which the cultural

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291

function of myth, legend, and folk tale are systematically studied; in
which the ethnographer follows up all the connecting links between a
sacred story and its influence on social organization, law, order, and
ritual.

In order to explain a cultural product it is necessary to know it. And
to know, in matters of thought and emotion, is to have experienced.
The first necessity in the study of mythology, then, is to grasp how the
natives live their myths. I maintain that the sacred tale is not told for
amusement, as a simple entertainment. The "sacred" in early human
societies is not an idle show or pretense imagined for the satisfaction of
curiosity or even of emotional craving. The "sacred," both as a mental
attitude and a form of behavior, is a dynamic principle of culture,
governing some of the most important fields of human activity: magic,
religion, morality, and social organization. In magic the "sacred," the
power that resides in words and the efficacy that comes from appropriate
gestures allows man to achieve supernaturally that which his practical
means and abilities fail to accomplish: to inflict disease on an enemy
and to restore the health of a friend; to enhance his own strength in
battle, and to cow the adversary; to insure plenty in hunting, fishing,
and in agriculture; to gain success in love and in social ambition. In
religion, the "sacred" works as a life force which binds members of a
group together and, by the establishment of moral values, integrates
the mind of the individual in the crises of life— death, puberty, mar-
riage, and birth. In conduct and organization, the "sacred" sanctions
value, rule, and law.

Now what role does myth play in magic, religion, and morality? In
all domains of the "sacred," man is required to act, often under con-
siderable sacrifice to himself, in order to reach some ideal or goal. He
has to undergo ordeals, to observe taboos, to forego comforts and endure
privations, frequently for the benefit of others, always for advantages
which are neither obvious nor immediate. To enforce the command-
ments of religion and magic a strong belief must exist that the promises
or threats which sanction the commands are true. But man is more
likely to believe in a future when he has some evidence of it from the
past; he is more likely to act on a promise if there is a precedent to
confirm it. There is no doubt, in fact, that the main cultural function
of mythology is the establishment of precedent; the vindication of the
truth of magic, of the binding forces of morals and law, of the real
value of religious ritual, by a reference to events which have happened
in a dim past, in the Golden Age of old, when there was more truth
in the world, more divine influence, more virtue and happiness. Myth,
coming from the true past, is the precedent which holds a promise of a

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better future if only the evils of the present be overcome. It also usu-
ally indicates how the present can be vanquished with the help of ritual,
of religion, of moral precepts handed down from the past.

If with these principles in mind we look honestly at our own religion,
we can easily see how the story of Paradise, of the Fall, of the Expulsion,
of the Promise of a Redeemer, and finally, of the Redemption itself
gives the breath of life to Christian morality, to the Sacraments, and
even to such of the ritual as some of us follow. Nor are the savage
Australians, the Melanesians, or the African Negroes and Bantu dif-
ferent from us. Wherever we have a sufficiently full account of religion
and magic along with the narratives of folk-lore, it is possible to show
how deeply connected the two are, and how myth in its fundamental
function is neither explanatory, nor "wish-fulfilhng," nor historical, but
essentially a precedent in support of religion and magical belief, or in
support of social and moral order.

To conclude then, we may say that no myth, no part of folk-lore
can ever be understood except as a living force in culture. The field
worker should not merely collect tales torn out of their context, but
observe the influence of myth on the social structure, the foundations
of man's power over nature as expressed in it, in short, he should study
the influence of mythological ideas on morality, on law, on magic, and
on the religious ceremonies side by side with the stories.

Dr. Holmberg's book makes a considerable advance toward the presen-
tation of myth from this point of view. The volume gives remarkably
few stories, too few perhaps, and consists mainly in an account of the
various beliefs, practices, and institutions in which is embodied the
mythological world of the Siberian and Finno-Ugric races. The vivid,
convincing, and well documented picture of the material and spiritual
universe of the natives will rivet the attention of the casual readers
from start to finish, and prove invaluable as first-hand material to the
specialist. Scientifically the most important are those parts of the book
in which Dr. Holmberg shows the cultural life of sacred stories and
ideas and thus reveals the true nature and function of myth. Thus the
extraordinary ccsmological concepts of some Siberians about the Pillar
of the World, which supports the sky and tethers the stars, are shown
to be connected with ancient forms of religious cult. Again in his ac-
count of Shamanism, Dr. Holmberg succeeds in giving a new, original,
and dramatic version. For he does not merely tell us about the Shaman,
nor is he satisfied to list the native beliefs on the subject; he shows us
the Shaman at work, predicting the future, curing sickness and causing
disease, surrounded by his familiar animals and guardian spirits, wielding
the instruments of his office: the hammer, the ring, and the drum —
and, withal, drawing a reasonable income from the supernatural trade

THE LIFE OF MYTH

293

and enjoying considerable prestige. Dr. Holmberg also establishes a re-
markable connection between Siberian Shamanism and totemism. He
shows that both types of belief are rooted in the mythological idea that
Shamanistic lineage on the one hand and magical powers on the other
have been received from animals by human ancestors.

All these subjects will have an equal appeal to the student and to the
layman, for Dr. Holmberg's style is vivid, his argument clear, and he
knows the actors and the scenery from personal experience. The descrip-
tions of the Arctic tundra, of the steppes, of the wide rivers of Eastern
Europe and Siberia, are a fitting background to the contortions of the
Shaman, to Spirits of Nature hovering among the stunted firs and
birches, to the Living Stones — the Seide of Lapland — to the sacrifices
of the Votiaks and Cheremiss made to their gods of nature among
primeval groves on the plains of the Volga. All this Dr. Holmberg has
seen with his own eyes and he conveys it to us well in his vivid descrip-
tion and in the excellent illustrations.

The insistence with which the real nature of myth and legend as the
traditional precedent of belief, moral rule, and social organization is
brought out in this volume is the natural outcome of a thorough knowl-
edge of the material. And his method is the more convincing since the
Finnish author does not seem to be aware of its theoretical importance.
Indeed in the chapters on the Siberian Tree of Life and on the Mountain
of the World with its manifold terraces, fascinated though we are by
the narrative, we miss the fuller data which would allow us to judge
whether these ideas are part of a larger system, or whether they influ-
ence ritual, cult, and conduct or whether they are mere literary fancies.
Certain descriptions of nature-spirits, the Siberian beliefs on the stars
and thunder, on fire and on wind, on the origin of the mosquito, as well
as the Finno-Ugric account of ghosts are also incomplete in that the
cultural context is not fully given. We would like to know how far
the mythological belief in natural forces is connected with magical
control of nature and how far this again is dependent upon economic
pursuits.

The data on family gods, heroes, and household gods among Finno-
Ugric peoples would gain by a fuller sociological account of tribal organi-
zation. But all such criticisms are merely the outcome of our apprecia-
tion of what Dr. Holmberg's work has already given us and a wish
that, having gone so far on the right way he might have gone further.
It might also be said that the author having shown the right v/ay to
approach myth, that is through the study of its cultural context, gives
us perhaps too little of myth itself. No long narratives are told and even
abridged stories are very sparsely adduced. They might almost be num-

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CULTURE AND MYTH

bered on the fingers. It is certainly correct to start from the cultural
approach to myth, but having reached it, it would be as well to indulge
in a fuller treatment of it than is here given. Is myth inevitably con-
demned to fall between two stools, to be given only as an unintelligible
story by one and to be practically omitted by the other?

In spite of this the volume is one of the best descriptions of primitive
Weltanschauung and one of the most important additions to the science
of myth that has recently been published. Great as is its intrinsic value,
it becomes the more appreciable since the literature on Siberia and
Eastern Europe is mostly written in Slavonic, Ugro-Finnish, or at best
in Scandinavian languages, and is therefore inaccessible to the Western
scholar. To read, moreover, an account of savage races written by a
highly civilized member of one of them — even though that race has
reached perhaps the highest level of culture — provides a rare anthropo-
logical thrill. And again, the peoples in the heart of Asia and Eastern
Europe have, in many ways, influenced human history and human cul-
ture to a greater extent than any other race, partly because in their
constant invasions of their richer, sedentary neighbors — the Chinese,
the Europeans, the Semites, and the Hindus — they provided the dynamic
factor of human history and progress, partly because they provide,
most likely, the real link between the Old and the New World.

iHIlIlI 15 llllllllilllllilll

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS

Preface

Anthropology is the comparative science of human cultures. It is often
conceived as the study of man's savagery and of his exotic extrava-
gances. Modern developments in the world's history, however, have made
us uncertain whether we can trace a sharp line of distinction between
culture and savagery. The student of human institutions and customs is,
as a matter of method, also feeling less and less inclined to confine him-
self to the so-called primitive or simple cultures. He draws on the
savageries of contemporary civilization as well as on the virtues and
wisdom to be found among the humbler peoples of the world. By this
very fact the Science of Man has a lesson to teach.

But the specifically scientific task of anthropology is to reveal the
fundamental nature of human institutions through their comparative
study. An inductive survey establishing the intrinsic similarity which
underlies fortuitous variations discloses the nature of law and religion,
of property and co-operation, of credit and moral confidence; it also
yields the correct definition of such institutions as human marriage,
family. Church, and State. What is common to all of them, quod
semper, quod ubique, quod ab initio, constitutes obviously their essential
character. In all this the Science of Man is gradually falling into line
with other sciences, above all with the exact and natural disciplines.

To many a thinking man and woman one of the most important
questions of the day is the place of religion in our modern culture. Is
its influence on the wane? Has it failed us, say, in the last war and in
the framing of the ensuing peace? Is it gradually receding from the

The following articles comprised the Riddell Memorial Lectures delivered
before the University of Durham at Armstrong College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
February 193 5, and were published as a booklet by the Oxford University Press,
London, in 193 6.

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CULTURE AND MYTH

dominant place which it ought to occupy in our public life and private
concerns? The attacks on religion nowadays are many, the dangers and
snags innumerable and obvious. Yet, here again, the comparative study
of civilization teaches that the core of all sound communal life has al-
ways been a strong, living faith. What about our own civihzation? Is
there not a slight shifting of the function and substance of religious
belief? Do we not observe the infiltration of extraneous dogmas, political
and economic, into the place of the spiritual truths on which Christianity
is based? Is it true that some modern political movements, Communism
or Fascism, the belief in the saving power of the totalitarian state and of
new Messiahs, brown-, red-, or black-shirted, are becoming, in form and
function, the effective religion of the modern world?

From the scientific point of view we must first arrive at a clear con-
ception of what religion is. And this can be best achieved by a compara-
tive study of religious phenomena, carried out in the anthropological
spirit. Such a survey will show that, as regards religion, form, function,
and substance are not arbitrary. From the study of past reUgions, primi-
tive and developed, we shall gain the conviction that religion has its
specific part to play in every human culture; that this is fundamentally
connected with faith in Providence, in immortality, and in the moral
sense of the world; and that this faith in turn demands a technique for
its expression, a technique which offers possibilities of communion and
prayer, of revelation and miracle; finally, that every religion implies some
reward of virtue and the punishment of sin.

The argument which will be presented in these lectures will carry to
the thoughtful reader the lesson that substance and expression are deeply
interwoven in all religious manifestations. It is a tragic error, therefore,
to apply religious technique to ends which are extraneous to true faith,
to ends which are partisan, political, or economic. A sound social life must
be based upon a truly religious system of values, that is, one which reflects
the revelation to us of the existence of spiritual and moral order. This
does not mean that all the members of the society controlled by religious
belief and ethics should be bigoted sectarians, or even practising believers.
To plead for the application of ethical principles and the recognition of
spiritual values in public Kfe and national policy is not tantamount to the
declaration of one's own adherence to any metaphysical or dogmatic sys-
tem.

I, personally, am unable to accept any revealed religion. Christian or
not. But even an agnostic has to live by faith — in the case of us, pre-war
rationalists and liberals, by the faith in humanity and its powers of im-
provement. This faith allowed us to work in freedom of thought and
independence of initiative for the progress of science and for the establish-
ment of a commonwealth of free human beings. It allowed us to exercise

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS

2^7

our intellectual and artistic faculties, safeguarded as we were by demo-
cratic institutions, looking forward, as we were able, to the welfare of
generations to come. This faith has been as rudely shaken by the War and
its consequences as that of the Christian. Science has suffered. It has be-
come enslaved and subordinated to political and partisan ends. Science,
too, like Christianity, has failed us as a foundation for ethics and for con-
structive action. So that as a rationalist and a believer in the development
of human personality and of a liberal commonwealth of free men, I find
myself in the same predicament as that of a believing Christian. It is high
time that the old, now essentially unreal, feud between science and reli-
gion should be ended, and that both should join hands against the com-
mon enemy. The common enemy, in my opinion, is the planned misuse of
force on a large scale, and the national organization for an aimless and
destructive struggle between the members of what is really one common-
wealth, united by economic, cultural, and ethical interests.

For some time past I was working on the foundations for a full and
reasoned statement of my belief in the value of religion. Keeping to my
anthropological last, I was engaged in the collection of material for a
book or a memoir, in v/hich I proposed primarily to analyse the technique
of religious expression in myth and dogma, in ritual and ceremonies, in
ethics and the social influence of faith.^ When I was invited to give the
Riddell Memorial Lectures for the Session 1934—5, I felt that the scope
of my inquiries fitted well into the terms of the Charter: "The subject-
matter of the Lectures is to be the relation between Religion and con-
temporary development of Thought . . . with particular emphasis on
and reference to the bearing of such development on the Ethics and
Tenets of Christianity." I decided to submit a preliminary statement of
my results, and thus to demonstrate the integrative function of Chris-
tianity in our own culture. The text of the lectures here presented must
be regarded as a preliminary statement of my conclusions, documented by
the most relevant and most telling facts. I have to thank the Committee
of the Riddell Memorial Lectures for the permission granted me to re-
publish, at a later date and in a fuller form, the material and conclusions
here outlined. Since, however, the more extensive publication will be of a
strictly technical character, and will be addressed primarily to the spe-
cialist in anthropology and comparative History of Religion, the lectures
as they stand will in no way be superseded.

Department of Anthropology B. M.

University of London

^ In the collecting of the extensive material, only part of which is incorporated in this
pamphlet, I was greatly helped by Miss Iris Harris and Miss N, Cohen, whose assistance
was made possible by the generosity of the Rockefeller Foundation.

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THE THREE ASPECTS OF RELIGION

Religion is a difficult and refractory subject of study. It seems futile to
question that which contains the answers to all problems. It is not easy to
dissect with the cold knife of logic what can only be accepted with a
complete surrender of heart. It seems impossible to comprehend with
reason that which encompasses mankind with love and supreme wisdom.

Nor is it easier for an atheist to study religion than for a deeply con-
vinced believer. The rationalist denies the reality of religious experience.
To him, the very fact of religion is a mystery over which he may smile,
or by which he may be puzzled, but which, by his very admission, he is
not qualified to fathom; it is difficult seriously to study facts which
appear merely a snare, a delusion, or a trickery. Yet how can even a
rationalist lightly dismiss those realities which have formed the very
essence of truth and happiness to millions and hundreds of millions over
thousands of years?

In another way the believer, too, is debarred from impartial study. For
him one religion, his own, presents no problems. It is the Truth, the whole
Truth, and nothing but the Truth. Especially if he be a fundamentalist,
that is, unable to understand the foundations of human faith, he will
simply disregard most religious phenomena as "superstitions" and will
uphold his own views as Absolute Truth. And yet every one, the bigoted
fundamentalist always excepted, might well pause and reflect on the way
of his Providence which has vouchsafed the Truth to a small part of
humanity, and has kept the rest of mankind in a state of perpetual dark-
ness and error and thus condemned them to eternal perdition. Yet there
may perhaps be room for a humble approach to all facts of human belief,
in which the student investigates them with a sympathy which makes him
almost a believer, but with an impartiality which does not allow him to
dismiss all religions as erroneous whilst one remains true.

It is in this spirit that the anthropologist must approach the problems
of primitive religion if he is to be of use in the understanding of the
religious crises of our modern world. We must always keep in sight the
relation of faith to human life, to the desires, difficulties, and hopes of
human beings. Beliefs, which we so often dismiss as "superstition," as a
symptom of savage crudeness or "prelogical mentality," must be under-
stood; that is, their culturally valuable core must be brought to light. But
belief is not the alpha and omega of religion: it is important to realize
that man translates his confidence in spiritual powers into action; that in
prayer and ceremonial, in rite and sacrament, he always attempts to keep
in touch with that supernatural reality, the existence of which he affirms

•

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS

in his dogma. Again, we shall see that every religion, however humble,
carries also instructions for a good life; it invariably provides its followers
with an ethical system.

Every religion, primitive or developed, presents then three main aspects,
dogmatic, ritual, and ethical. But the mere division or differentiation into
three aspects is not sufficient. It is equally important to grasp the essential
interrelation of these three aspects, to recognize that they are really only
three facets of the same essential fact. In his dogmatic system, man affirms
that Providence or spirits or supernatural powers exist. In his religious
ritual he worships those entities and enters into relation with them, for
revelation implies that such a relation is possible and necessary. Spirits,
ancestral ghosts, or gods refuse to be ignored by man, and he in turn is
in need of their assistance. The dependence on higher powers implies
further the mutual dependence of man on his neighbour. You cannot
worship in common without a common bond of mutual trust and assist-
ance, that is, of charity and love. If God has created man in His own
image, one image of God may not debase, defile, or destroy the other.

In discussing dogmatics, especially in primitive religions, we shall be
met by what might be described as the mystery of myth. In all religions,
Christianity and Judaism not excepted, we find that every tenet of belief,
every dogmatic affirmation, has a tendency to be spun out into a long
narrative. In other words, the abstract system of dogmatic principles is
invariably bound up with a sacred history.

Minor characteristics, extravagances, and peculiarities of mythology
have mostly attracted the interest of the student in the past and aroused
his passion to explain them. The stories are at times crude, in some cases
even obscene. This, within the general scope of our analysis, we shall not
find difficult to understand: religious beliefs enter deeply into the essential
facts of life, of which fertility and procreation are an essential part.
Another peculiarity of myth is the frequent reference to natural phe-
nomena, to features of the landscape, to quaint habits of animals and
plants. This has often been accounted for in learned theories by the as-
sumption that mythology is primitive science, and that its main function
is to explain natural phenomena and the mysteries of the universe. Such
theories we shall to a large extent have to dismiss or at least to correct.
Primitive man has his science as well as his religion; a myth does not serve
to explain phenomena but rather to regulate human actions.

The main problem of myth is in my opinion its relation to dogma; the
fact that myth is an elaboration of an act of faith into an account of a
definite concrete miracle. Why is this necessary? In the course of our
analysis I hope to show that this is due to the very nature of life and faith.
Faith is always based on primeval revelation, and revelation is a concrete
event. In revelation God, or ancestral spirits, or culture heroes create and
mould the universe, manifest their will and power to man. All this is a

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temporal process, a concrete sequence of activities, a set of dramatic per-
formances. Man in turn reacts to this manifestation of supernatural
power, he rebels and sins, gains knowledge, loses grace and regains it once
more. Small wonder, then, that most of the dogmatic systems of mankind
occur as a body of sacred tradition, as a set of stories stating the begin-
ning of things and thus vouching for their reality. Again, since in myth
we have an account of how Providence created man and revealed its
reality to him, we usually find that myth contains also the prescription
of how man has to worship Providence in order to remain in contact with
it.

Thus the discussion of myth leads us directly to the riddle of ritual.
Here, again, we shall not tarry over the sensational peculiarities of detail.
We shall proceed at once to the central and fundamental problem: *'"Why
ritual?" We may start here with the extreme Puritan's scorn and rejec-
tion of all ritualism, for this represents the voice of reason against the
sensuous, almost physiological attitude of naive faith. Incense, pictures,
processions, fireworks are as incomprehensible, hence repugnant, to the
highly refined and reflective type of religious consciousness as they are to
the anti-religious rationalist. Ritualism is to reason, pure, or sublimated
in religious feeling, always a form of idolatry, a return to magic. To the
dispassionate student of all religions, who is not prepared to discount
Roman Catholicism because he feels a deep admiration for the religion
of Friends, nor yet to dismiss totemism because he appreciates its distance
from the rehgion of Israel, ritual still remains a problem. Why has man
to express such simple affirmations as the belief in the immortality of the
soul, in the reality of a spiritual world, by antics, dramatized perform-
ances, by dancing, music, incense, by an elaboration, richness, and an
extensiveness of collective action which often consumes an enormous
amount of tribal or national energy and substance?

Here, again, our argument will not be a mere tilting at windmills.
The usual scientific treatment of ritual, primitive and civilized, does not
seem to me to be quite satisfactory. The conception, for instance, of
primitive magic as "a false scientific technique" does not do justice to
its cultural value. Yet one of the greatest contemporary anthropologists.
Sir James Frazer, has to a certain extent given countenance to this con-
ception. Freud's theory that magic is man's primitive belief in the **om-
nipotence of thought" would also dismiss primitive ritual as a colossal
piece of pragmatic self-deception. The views here advanced will be that
every ritual performance, from a piece of primitive Australian magic to
a Corpus Christi procession, from an initiation ceremony to the Holy
Mass, is a traditionally enacted miracle. In such a miracle the course of
human life or of natural events is remodelled by the action of super-
natural forces, which are released in a sacred, traditionally standardized
act of the congregation or of the rehgious leader. The fact that every

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS

301

religious rite must contain an element of the miraculous will not appear to
us an outgrowth of human childishness, of primeval stupidity {Vrdumm-
heit) , nor yet a blind alley of primitive pseudo-science. To us it rep-
resents the very essence of religious faith. Man needs miracles not because
he is benighted through primitive stupidity, through the trickery of a
priesthood, or through being drugged with "the opiate for the masses,"
but because he realizes at every stage of his development that the powers
of his body and of his mind are limited. It is rather the recognition of
his practical and intellectual limitations, and not the illusion of the "om-
nipotence of thought," which leads man into ritualism; which makes him
re-enact miracles, the feasibility of which he has accepted from his
mythology.

The enigma of ethics, the question why every religion carries its own
morals, is simpler. Why, in order to be decent and righteous, must man
believe in the Devil as well as in God, in demons as well as in spirits, in
the malice of his ancestral ghosts as well as in their benevolence? Here,
once more, we have a host of theoretical conceptions, or misconceptions,
dictated by hostility to religion or by the partisanship of sectarians. In
order to safeguard ourselves against the superficial view that a sadistic
priesthood has invented hell-fire so as to cow believers into doing what it
wishes, we shall have to make an attempt at a real understanding of the
phenomena. For, with all our sympathy for the religious attitude, we shall
also have to reject the theological view that morality must be associated
with dogma, because both have been vouchsafed to mankind by the One
True Revelation. The correct answer to our problem lies in the social
character of religion. That every organized belief implies a congregation,
must have been felt by many thinkers instructed by scholarship and com-
mon sense. Yet, here again, science was slow to incorporate the dictates of
simple and sound reason. Tylor and Bastian, Max Miiller and Mannhardt
treat religious systems as if they were philosophical or literary produc-
tions. The initiative in putting the sociological aspect of religion on the
scientific map came from the Scottish divine and scholar, Robertson Smith.
It was elaborated with precision, but also with exaggeration, by the French
philosopher and sociologist, Durkheim.

The essentially sound methodological principle is that worship always
happens in common because it touches common concerns of the com-
munity. And here, as our analysis will show, enters the ethical element
intrinsically inherent in all religious activities. They always require efforts,
discipline, and submission on the part of the individual for the good of
the community. Taboos, vigils, religious exercises are essentially moral, not
merely because they express submission of man to spiritual powers, but
also because they are a sacrifice of man's personal comfort for the com-
mon weal. But there is another ethical aspect which, as we shall see, makes
all religions moral in their very essence. Every cult is associated with a

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definite congregation: ancestor-worship is primarily based on the family;
at times even on a wider group, the clan; at times it becomes tribal, when
the ancestor spirit is that of a chief. The members of such a group of
worshippers have natural duties towards each other. The sense of common
responsibility, of reciprocal charity and goodwill, flows from the same
fundamental idea and sentiment which moves clansmen, brothers, or
tribesmen to common worship. I am my tribesman's brother, or my clans-
man's totemic kinsman, because we are all descended from the same being
whom we worship in our ceremonies, to whom we sacrifice, and to whom
we pray. We have only to change the word descended into created in order
to pass to those religions which maintain as a fundamental principle the
brotherhood of man, because he owes his existence to a Creator whom he
addresses as ''Our Father which art in Heaven." The conception of the
Church as a big family is rooted in the very nature of religion.

These conclusions may seem simple, once they are stated directly.
Fundamental scientific truths in physics and biology, as in the science of
man, are never sophisticated. Yet, as I shall show later, even now anthro-
pologist and missionary alike deny ethics to the heathen.

I hope that the perusal of the following lectures will supply the reader
with what might be called a sound theoretical framework for the appraisal
of other religious phenomena, primitive and civilized, ancient and modern,
healthy and pathological.

illl II

A SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF MYTH

The central problem of myth has already been raised, and its answer fore-
shadowed. The problem is why dogma has a tendency to develop into a
story; the answer suggested was that, since all dogmas are revealed, the
story of the revelation has to be told so that the truth of the dogmas be
founded in real historical fact. Turn to a collection of material such as
Frazer's Golden Bough or his Folk-Lore in the Old Testament and you will
find our contention fully documented. The behef in Providence and in
the Great Architect of the universe is embodied in numberless mythologi-
cal cosmologies. On the shores of the Pacific and on its many islands we
are told how the world was fished out of the sea or moulded out of slime;
or again, from other continents, we have stories relating how out of chaos
the various parts or elements of the universe have been shaped in succes-
sion, or how the earth was hurled from space, or out of darkness, by a
divine maker. The wide range of beliefs which are usually labelled "nature-
worship" again have a rich mythology of totemic ancestors, of the early
appearance and miraculous, though not always moral, behaviour of nature
gods.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS

303

There is no doubt that all the stories of creation, of the first appearance
of man, of the loss of worldly immortality and the translation to another
world after death account to a certain extent for the existence of the
world, of man, of after-life. But they are not scientific explanations.
They are not taken as items of ordinary knowledge. They are regarded by
the people as sacred; they are enacted by them in religious mysteries,
sacrifices, and ceremonies; and they form the foundation, not only of
faith, but also of religious law. To tell how God created the world is to
affirm that God is not only the cause but also the end of all existence,
the giver of all that is good and the source of all the laws of life. To tell
how man lost eternal life on earth, and then was given an after-life, is to
impart the dogma of the immortality of the soul, and through this to give
the foundation of ancestor-worship, as well as the ritual of burial and
mourning. To describe how man at one time descended from the animals
gives a charter of totemic relationship for the members of a clan, who
are still regarded as related to the animal species and can therefore control
that species through ritual and magic.

Right through we can see, even at a cursory glance, how myth is a
living reality, is active in ritual and in ethics, and is dramatically con-
vincing as the foundation of dogma. The best way, perhaps, to bring home
the significance of myth as a charter of belief, ritual, and ethics, is by
analysing one example fully. It will provide us with what I understand is
called, in the technical language of the moving pictures, a "close-up." I
shall briefly show how I was forced to adopt this theory in the course of
my experiences in field-work in Melanesia.

When I first went there I knew that every good ethnographer must
collect "folk-lore." By the time I was able to use the vernacular, I was
eagerly writing down any story which was told to me by a native. I
collected tales about ogres and flying canoes, about malicious stepmothers
and daring sailors, about the beginnings of magic and the queer pranks of
an avaricious harlot. Gradually, however, it dawned on me that the
natives themselves were aware of points in the performance which I was
constantly missing; for I was collecting texts but disregarding contexts.
In the course of time, I realized that the manner of telling a story and
the way in which it was received, the circumstances under which the
story was told and its immediate and also indirect influence, were quite as
important as the text itself.

I missed not only the context of situation but very often the context
of further elaborations and commentaries on the part of the natives.^
After telling me some important or sacred story, the narrator would often

"The reader acquainted with the present writer's Coral Gardens and their Magic,
1935, and especially with the linguistic arguments of Vol. II, will understand what is
meant by the term "context of situation" and the theoretical importance of this in the
ethnographic treatment of human speech and folk-lore.

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continue into what seemed to me entirely irrelevant verbosities. I still can
remember the first time I was told the myth about the brother and sister
incest.^ After the tragic account was finished, my friend, who belonged
to the community which "owns" this myth, began to boast: he told me
how they and they alone have the power to enact properly the love-magic
which is associated with the myth; how they have the right to levy toll
on neighbouring communities; how certain spots in the territory are
important for the correct carrying out of the magic. Feeling that the
narrator was "rambling," I cut him short and told him that if the nar-
rative was not finished he ought to continue it, but that if he had nothing
more to tell of the story, I was not interested in his bragging. It was only
later that I realized that in this very bragging lay what was perhaps the
most important aspect of myth. My informant, in a characteristically
boastful manner, was simply stating how the myth acts as a warrant for
the correct performance of the magic; how it gives a right of ownership
and control to the natives of the community where the magic originated,
and from whence it draws its miraculous powers. He was, in short, giving
me the sociological function of myth, in his na'ive, concrete, and strongly
personal manner. In the course of my work I discovered that such epi-
logues or appendixes to a narrative very often contain new and unexpected
sidelights on ritual, on the rank or privileges of the communities, clans,
and individuals, and on the way in which the very validity of magic was
established in native belief.

In fact, with a better knowledge of the vernacular, I was forced to
discriminate between several categories of folk-lore, and I had to base my
discrimination not so much on differences in text, but rather in cultural
setting."* I found that there is a class of stories which might be called
fairy-tales or folk-tales. The natives call them ktikwanebu. These are told
during the rainy season when people are largely confined to the villages
and, especially in the evenings, have nothing to do. They are told entirely
for entertainment. Their subject-matter consists of grotesque, miraculous,
and often bawdy events which appear in the same light to the natives
as to the European listener. These stories definitely form what may be
called tribal fiction — tales told for mere entertainment — and they do not
convey any important truths, moral precepts, or ritual directions.

A second class, called libogwo, consists of historical legends, believed to
be true, and usually told to enhance or define the status of a community,
clan, or family. These stories as a rule contain little or nothing that is
actually miraculous or extravagant, although they are not always free
from exaggerations in the heroic line.

There is a third class of story, told for a very serious purpose, and

^Compare the last chapter of Sexual Life of Savages, and Part 2, Chapt. IV, of Sex
and Repression.

* Compare Myth in Primitive Psychology, pp. 24-36.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS

305

connected with religious belief, social order, or moral issues, and last but
not least with ritual. These stories, like the fairy-tales, have a strong tinge
of the supernatural. But here the supernatural is not a mere trick of fancy,
not an idle satisfaction of day-dreaming, but a miracle which is firmly
believed in, a miracle, moreover, which, as likely as not, will be re-enacted
in a partial and modified form through the ritual of native magic and
religion.

Thus there exists a special class of story regarded as sacred, embodied
in ritual, morals, and social organization, and constituting an integral and
effective part of religion and magic. These stories do not live by idle
interest; they are not narrated as historical accounts of ordinary facts.
They are to the natives a statement of a higher and a more important
truth, of a primeval reality, which is still regarded as the pattern and
foundation of present-day life. The knowledge of the mythological past
supplies man with the incentive, as well as with the justification, for
ritual and moral action; it furnishes him with a body of indications and
directions for the correct performance of the sacred acts.

If I wanted to convince you briefly of the correctness of my conclu-
sions, and if I had the opportunity of transporting you to the Trobriand
Islands for a short visit, I would first make you participate in a typical
social gathering at which fairy-tales are recounted. You would find your-
self among a hilarious gathering of people, invariably at dusk or at night,
sitting round the fire, at times engaged in some manual work and listen-
ing to stories which they all know almost by heart, but to which they
always respond with interruptions, repartees, and laughter. Many a man
or woman "owns" a number of fairy-tales, that is, tales which he or she
has appropriated by custom and practice. Such tales are often punctuated
by ditties in which the other natives join in chorus. The jokes are often
ribald and the audience responds or caps them with additional remarks.

It would have been an entirely different setting in which you would
hear a native legend told naturally and spontaneously in the course of
tribal life. We would have to visit some distant community, and there,
perhaps at an historic spot, or in reference to the rights of ownership of
another village, or in order to flatter the pride of a subclan, we would be
told a tale which has all the hall-marks of an historical account. Stories
of that nature would also be related at times of overseas sailing, or, in
olden days, during a war between two groups of villages. We would then
hear about famous exploits, shipwrecks and rescues, victories and fierce
battles.^

But it is when tribal festivities or magical ceremonies are to be per-
formed that the time for telling the most sacred tales is at hand. Thus,

^ Some such stories the reader will find in my Argonauts of the Western Pacific, in
Professor SeUgman's Melanesians of British New Guinea, and in Dr. Fortune's Sorcerers
of Dobu.

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CULTURE AND MYTH

during the sacred season of harvest rejoicing, the younger generation are
reminded by their elders that the spirits of their ancestors are about to
return from the underworld and visit the ancestral village. The dogmatic
substance of Trobriand belief about the fate of the soul after death, the
nature of the underworld, and the various forms of communion between
the living and the dead, are stated at that season more frequently than
at any other time. The reality of the spirit world would also be present
both in the mind and in the conversation of the natives on the occasion
of death or when a big ceremonial distribution of wealth occurs to com-
memorate a recently deceased person.^

Thus during harvest and after, at the season of Milamala, when the
spirits come for a few weeks and settle again in the villages, perched upon
the trees or sneaking about the houses, sitting on high platforms specially
erected for them, watching the dancing and partaking of the spiritual
substance of the food and wealth displayed for them, the knowledge of
the whole dogmatic system concerning spirits is necessary, and it is then
imparted by the elder to the younger. Every one as yet uninformed is
told that after death the spirit has to go to Tuma, the nether world as-
sociated with the small island of that name. He has to pass through a
narrow cleft in the rocks which is the entrance to the nether world. On
the way he encounters Topileta, the guardian of the spirit world, who
must be offered gifts, the spiritual substance of the valuables with which
the body is covered at death. After he has passed the entrance and satisfied
the guardian of the dead, the spirit is received by friends and relatives to
whom he tells news of the world of the living. And then he settles down
to a second life, built very much on the pattern of the previous existence.

In order to keep in touch with the supernatural realities and happen-
ings of the Milamala, it is necessary for every one to be instructed in the
ways of spirits and on their behaviour: how they manifest their existence
and how they can be reached by the living; how they show their anger
and their pleasure. On the whole, adherence to custom and tradition
pleases the ancestral ghosts, while neglect angers them. The rules of con-
duct of man towards spirits and their reactions to them are given, not in
the form of abstract principles and precepts, but by telling the story of
an occurrence. This is at times a recent event, at times very ancient, but
it always points a moral and establishes a precedent. These stories have
very often only a local currency. In one village I was told that three years
ago the spirits spoiled a whole feasting and dancing season by inducing
bad weather, destroying the crops, and sending sickness on the people,
because the community had not obeyed its chief who wanted them to

fuller documentation of the native belief in the spirit world will be found in an
article entitled "Baloma, Spirits of the Dead in the Trobriand Islands," in the Journal of
the Royal Anthropological Institute, 1916.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS

307

carry out their fishing magic according to old custom. Elsewhere, it was
the unsatisfactory performance of a big mortuary feast, due to the mean-
ness of the headman, which had irritated the spirits and made them show
their displeasure by sending a set of calamities.

nil III

THE SPIRIT WORLD IN MYTH AND OBSERVANCE

But over and above such local minor myths there exist one or two stories
referring to very ancient times and defining several of the fundamental
tenets of native belief. The very existence of the other world and its place
beneath the surface of the earth, in a diflferent dimension, so to speak, is
established by the story which might be called the Trobriand "myth of
myths" about the first arrival of human beings on earth. Humanity, once
upon a time, led an existence similar to that which the spirits now lead
underground, in a shadowy world different from the present one. From
thence they ascended to earth by crawling out through places of emer-
gence, ''holes" or "houses" as they are called.

The fact of broken existence, that is, the fact of death and continuance
afterwards, is embodied in a tale of original immortality, of its loss, and
of its partial retention in the survival after death. Originally every one
was able to rejuvenate by the process now observed in snakes and other
reptiles, by sloughing the skin. This might have continued up to the
present, but for an original error or lapse of an innocent girl. It happened
in the village of Bwadela. An old woman who dwelt there with her
daughter and granddaughter went out one day for her regular rejuvena-
tion trick. She took off her skin and threw it on the waters of a tidal
creek, which, however, did not carry it away, as it was caught on a bush
and stuck there. Rejuvenated, she came back as a young girl and joined
her granddaughter, who was sitting at a distance. But the girl, instead
of welcoming her grandmother, failed to recognize her, was frightened,
and drove her away — a very serious insult among Trobrianders. The old
woman, hurt and angry, went to the creek, picked up her old skin, donned
it again, and came back in her wrinkled and decrepit form. From that
moment, and in the fulfilment of the curse which the old woman put
on her daughter and granddaughter, the rejuvenation process was lost
once and for ever. It is characteristic here that we have, in a matrilineal
society, one of the most important and dramatic occurrences in human
history taking place between women of three generations. It is also charac-
teristic that a small localized event has cast its blight upon the whole of
humanity, even as an event happening in a small garden somewhere in
Mesopotamia has blighted the life of that vast branch of humanity who

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believe in the Old Testament. This story obviously receives its full sig-
nificance only when we place it within the context of belief about death,
immortality, and the communion between the living and the dead.

On this last point the story is supplemented by another myth. For,
though human beings lost imm.ortality and eventually died, yet the ghosts
remained in the villages and took part in ordinary life, even as these spirits
now do on their annual return after harvest. It was only when one of
the poor invisible ghosts, sneaking in at meal-time and snatching the
crumbs of the living, was scalded with hot broth, that a new crisis arrived.
After the spirit had expostulated, she, for it again was a woman, was told
by her daughter, "Oh, I thought you were away, I thought you were
only returning after harvest." The old woman, with insult and mortifica-
tion added to injury, retorted, "Good, I shall go to Tuma and live in the
underworld." From that time on, the spirits have dwelt in their own
realm and returned only once a year.

There is another set of beliefs, essential to our understanding of the
Trobrianders' attitude towards life and death and survival. These natives
might be said hardly to recognize death as an inevitable event, inextricably
bound up with the process of life and setting a natural term to it. Al-
though they will admit that some people might die of old age or of an
accident, yet in the course of my inquiries I never came across a single
concrete case of "natural death." Every form of disease was conceived as
the result of witchcraft. An old man may be more susceptible to witch-
craft, but the real cause of his death is always a specific act of sorcery,
to which also are attributed all the fatal accidents. Here, once more, we
have a rich mythology. A number of stories are told of how witchcraft
was brought upon mankind. These, perhaps, are less primeval in their
nature, for the Trobriander believes that witchcraft always existed out-
side his district, and he feels only the necessity of relating how it came to
the Trobriand archipelago. One story tells how a crab flew through the
air from a southern island nearer the mainland of New Guinea, and came
down on a spot on the north of the main island of the Trobriands, in a
district which now enjoys the reputation for most efficient sorcery. This
crab taught the members of the local clan how to bewitch others and kill
them, and this knowledge is still retained by the clansmen of to-day. On
the south of the island, again, we are told how a bad and malicious being
travelled in the hollow of a bamboo, and was stranded on the southern tip
of the main island. In another story we hear about a big tree, in which
mahgnant demons resided. When it was felled its tip touched the southern-
most point of the Trobriands, which became immediately peopled with
carriers of sorcery.

The mythology of witchcraft accounts for the fact that Black Art
flourishes in its most efficient form in the two districts, the one where
the crab fell and the other where the evil beings were conveyed from the

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS

309

south. But the story does not contain merely an explanation. It is a so-
ciological charter for the local inhabitants, who derive part of their
income and most of their prestige from the fact that they are the ac-
credited sorcerers of the district. They also teach sorcery to others for a
substantial payment.

I have briefly summed up the main stories which refer to the phenomena
of death and its causes, to survival and immortality, and to the com-
munion between living and dead. Take one of these stories alone, and at
first sight it might appear as if it were just a tale told in ^'explanation"
of the loss of immortality, of the removal of spirits to another world, of
the occurrence of witchcraft, of sickness and of death. This to a certain
extent is true, for, if our theory is right, the essential nature of myth is
that it serves as a precedent, and every precedent contains an element of
explanation, for it is a prototype for subsequent cases.

But a precedent is not an explanation in the scientific sense; it does not
account for subsequent events through the relation of cause and effect,
or even of motive and consequence. In a way, it is the very opposite of
scientific explanation, for it relates a complete change in the order of the
universe to a singular dramatic event. It shows how the outburst of pas-
sion in the heart of an insulted and injured woman makes her throw away
the benefits of immortality, undergo the ordeal of decrepitude and death,
and all this in order to be able to curse posterity with the loss of eternal
life. In short, myth is not a pseudo-science of nature; it is a history of
the supernatural. It invariably refers to a unique break in the history of
the world and mankind.

It is only by the ambiguous use of the word "explanation" that we
could defend the aetiological theory of myth. Once this ambiguity is
recognized there is no harm in fully illuminating how far and to what
extent myth really satisfies the craving for explaining or accounting.
The answer is that myth explains in so far as a precedent establishes new
procedure; or as a creative act brings forth a new reality; or as a miracle
accounts for something which is unaccountable on the basis of scientific
knowledge. Mythology, then, is definitely the complement of what might
be called the ordinary knowledge or science of primitive man, but not its
substitute. It is true that the appearance of the Holy Virgin to Bernadette
Soubirous explains the miracles of Lourdes, but we must distinguish this
explanation from the axioms of biology, the generalizations of bacteriol-
ogy, and the empirical rules of medical knowledge. Those who mistake
primitive mythology for an equivalent of science should reflect on the
relation of our own myth to our own academic disciplines. Perhaps the
greatest shortcoming of the aetiological theory of myth is its denial of
primitive knowledge. The so-called primitives do distinguish between
natural and supernatural. They explain, not by telling a fairy-tale, but
by reference to experience, logic, and common sense, even as we do. Since

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they have their own science, mythology cannot be their system of explana-
tion in the scientific sense of the word. If in turn we try to define more
clearly the exact manner in which myth accounts for the order of the
universe and the life of man, we see immediately that the function of
myth is specific: it serves as a foundation for belief, and establishes a
precedent for the miracles of ritual and magic.

We can draw another conclusion from our analysis. It is incorrect to
take one incident from a narrative or even one narrative in isolation from
the others. It is only when we treat the whole cycle of stories connected
with the fact of death and survival, and when we place this cycle within
the context of native ritual behaviour and their moral attitudes, that we
do justice to the cultural character and role of myth. The theory of myth,
then, here propounded, implies a different treatment of empirical reality;
it assigns to myth a different function from that of either explanation or
allegory; it shows that the whole complex of cultural practices, beliefs,
and myths expresses man's pragmatic reaction towards life and its vicissi-
tudes; it refers to his emotions, forebodings, and to the ritualized behaviour
in which these mental attitudes are expressed.

Let me further substantiate this by a brief summary of other types of
Trobriand mythology. If I am correct in my theoretical handling of the
facts, we ought to find sacred stories whenever there is an important
dogma, a vital ritual, or some fundamental ethical process at stake. Apart
from health, disease, and self-preservation, man is perhaps most concerned
about two things: the satisfaction of his hunger and of his erotic impulses.
As regards the first, the complex and elaborate system of food -providing
processes intervenes between nature and man's square meal. The Trobri-
anders procure their food in several ways, of which two are primarily
important. First, the fruits of the jungle are collected and the tubers of
the gardens cultivated; second, the fish of sea and lagoon are caught.
Now, as regards vegetable food, agriculture is highly developed and sup-
plies them with their staple sustenance. Agriculture, therefore, constitutes
for them the primary interest in life, since success in gardening means
plenty and wealth, while failure means misery and starvation. There is
a twofold set of activities connected with the raising of crops, the rational
and the magical. In connexion with magic, there exists a mythology
telling how a culture hero, Tudava, originally apportioned different meas-
ures of fertility, together with spells and rites, for the raising of crops.
Those districts where he received a warm welcome were given good
gardens, those who received him with hostility were penalized by arid soil
and meagre gardens. This mythology serves to buttress the natives' con-
fidence in their magic. Side by side with the main myth about the culture
hero there exist also minor local myths, sometimes extremely brief and
succinct but very important, myths in which the members of a commu-
nity relate how their own local system came into being and why it is so

THE FOUNDATIONS Of FAITH AND MORALS

311

very effective. But I need not enter into this aspect of magic and myth,
for I have elaborated it elsewhereJ

Fishing, again, has an elaborate system of magic, and, connected with
it, myths telhng how the fishing of red mullet was instituted, again by
Tudava, the culture hero; also how shark-fishing and its magic came into
being in one of the villages of the north shore. In the matter of fishing,
an interesting correlation can be established in the Trobriands. Wher-
ever the pursuit is dangerous and its issues uncertain, there we have a
highly developed magic and, connected with it, a mythology. Where, as
in fishing by poison, there is no question about success and no tax on
human skill, endurance, or courage, we find no magic and no mythology.
And when it comes to minor economic pursuits, such as arts and crafts,
hunting, the collection of roots, and the gathering of fruit, again neither
magic nor mythology is to be found.

Returning once more to the main source of sustenance, that is, the soil
and its products, one condition of fertility is essential, the right incidence
of rain and sunshine. Since in this part of the world there is never danger
of too much rain, while droughts occasionally occur, it is the timely
arrival of rain which is the main source of anxiety. If rain fails for more
than a year, the whole district suffers drought and famine sets in. Histori-
cal accounts of terrible years of starvation are told by the natives; and
drought with its incident famine is always assigned to magic. The magic
of rain and sunshine is vested in one person and one person only, that of
the Paramount Chief of the district. It makes him the general benefactor
of the whole tribe when things go well, even as he is the dispenser of
punishment when his subjects have given him grounds for displeasure.
The complex and elaborate system of rain and drought magic is again
based upon a myth. This tells us how rain was born of a woman; how it
had to be stored in one or two sacred spots, ever since important in
magical ritual; and how the privilege of using this magic became finally
vested in the family of the Tabalu, the paramount rulers of the district.
In many ways this magic is the ultimate source of the chief's political
power and of his personal prestige.

The most ambitious seafaring enterprise of the natives, the circular
trade of valuables called kula, also has a system of magical practice and
a number of myths associated with it.^

Love, like hunger and the fear of death, is always fraught with strong
emotions, and anxieties, and forebodings. Nor does the course of love ever
run smoothly. We are not surprised, therefore, to find a mythology and a
magic associated with love. Here, the story of how an incestuous love-
adventure between brother and sister was caused by the accidental misuse

Coral Gardens and their Magic, 1935.
® Compare Argonauts of the Western Pacific, where a full description of the kula and
its magic has been given.

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CULTURE AND MYTH

of magic supplies not the explanation of the existence of love, nor yet of
the use of magic. It establishes a powerful precedent and gives a certain
community the charter for its performance.

The ''close-up" of Trobriand mythology has allowed us to appreciate
the cultural nature of myth on one example. Mythology, the system of
sacred stories, constitutes the charter of social organization and the prece-
dent of religious ritual. In this, mythology supplies the foundations of
all belief, especially the belief about life after death and about the miracu-
lous powers of magic and ceremonial. The sacred stories of the Trobri-
anders reveal how humanity has experienced the greatness of ancestors and
culture heroes; how through dramatic events a new order became estab-
lished or new principles introduced into human life; how the power of
magic was given to men, how it was used or misused. Our analysis has
proved to us also that, in Melanesia at least, myth must be studied within
the context of social life. Since myth does not live by myth alone, but
in so far as it influences art and dancing, social organization and economic
activities, directly or indirectly through the ritual connected with them,
the life of myth is not in its telling, but in the way it is fully enacted in
tribal custom and ceremonial.

Ilil IV

THE SACRED STORY AND ITS CONTEXT OF CULTURE

Let us for the moment look up and away from the narrow technicalities
of ethnography, and see what our conclusions mean as regards the nature
of religion in general. First of all, our facts teach us one truth regarding
the structure of Trobriand religion. Myth, ritual, and ethics are definitely
but three facets of the same essential fact: a deep conviction about the
existence of a spiritual reality which man attempts to control, and by
which in turn man is controlled. Dogma, ritual, and ethics are therefore
inseparable. Take the facts presented above about the mythological cycle
of death, immortality, and the spirit world. We started from stories, but
we were immediately led into a discussion of action directed towards the
subject-matter of these stories, that is, a discussion of ritual. At Milamala
we see how the ritual of give and take, the sacrifices to the spirits and
their response, are the expression of the truth contained in mythology.
And here ethics come in immediately, because the spirits and their reac-
tion are determined by moral principles. You give offerings to the spirits
of your own kindred, and they show their pleasure or displeasure by super-
natural symptoms. But the spirits expect not only material gifts but also
good behaviour. The spirits are in general conceived of as guardians of
tradition. They will be satisfied when people follow custom, scrupulously
carry out magic and observe taboos, conform to rules of family life,

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS

313

kinship, and of tribal organization. The two stock answers always given
to the question why custom is observed and tradition followed are: "It
has been ordained as of old," or else, "The spirits would be angry if we
did not follow custom.'* If you press further as to who it is that has
"ordained of old," reference will be made immediately to a specific myth;
or you will perhaps be told, "Our ancestors in olden days always did that.
They live now as spirits in the other world. They like us to behave as they
did. They become angry and make things bad if we do not obey custom."
In other words, the general principle of the observance of custom has its
spiritual backing. It is directly connected with the whole body of tradi-
tion, and with the ritual enactment of this tradition. Take away from
the natives the belief in the reality of their sacred lore, destroy their sense
of the spirit world as it exists and acts upon them, and you will under-
mine their whole moral outlook.

The consideration of the norms and practices connected with death,
burial, and mourning shows the close correlation between moral behaviour
towards living and dead, ritual practice, and dogmatic belief. At the death
of an individual a whole system of mortuary duties devolves on his im-
mediate relatives.^ The essence of these duties, from the sociological point
of view, is that they reaffirm the bonds of marriage and the duties of
children towards parents. In short, in its moral aspect, mortuary ritual is
the religious extension of the ethical rules of conduct as between the
members of the family, of the wider kindred group, and of the clan.
Later on, when the spirits enter into a permanent or periodic and seasonal
communion with the living, the family bonds and other social relations
contracted in life become extended to the spirits beyond.

Such a communion between the living and the dead, based upon the
pattern of earthly existence, is to be found wherever there is a belief in
spirits, or any form of ancestor-worship or Manism. In Christian Europe
on All Souls' Day, when people according to sect and nation commemorate
at graves or carry out memorial services in the church, there exists this
spiritual interaction between a man and the dead ones of his own family.
The dead depend upon the prayers, masses, or, at least, on the loving
memory of the survivors. The living turn to the dead for intercession in
Heaven. The African, again, lives in a world determined for good and
evil by ancestor spirits, the dispensers of good fortune and adversity
alike. Health and disease, affluence and famine, victory and defeat are
generally attributed to the goodwill of ancestral ghosts or to their dis-
pleasure respectively.

The relation between living and dead is realized in three ways. In
every form of ancestor-worship, the belief is founded on that specific
mythology which consists in family tradition, the knowledge of an-
cestral names, the personalities and exploits of the forebears in direct

® Sexual Life of Savages, Chapt. VI; Crime and Custom, pp. 33-34.

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CULTURE AND MYTH

line, especially in the miraculous aspect. The ritual of sacrifices and
devotion to ancestors is essential. Ritual, in turn, is necessarily per-
meated with ethics: the ancestors in spirit form, as the living parents,
punish for bad behaviour and disrespect, and reward for good conduct
and dutiful services. In all this we have gone beyond the Trobriands:
our conclusions hold good for the Communion of Saints in Christianity,
or for ancestor-worship in China or ancient Rome, in Bantu Africa or
among the Pueblo Indians, in Australia or the Egypt of the pharaohs.

And here we can see how the substance of religious belief is not arbi-
trary. It grows out of the necessities of life. What is the root of all the
beliefs connected with the human soul, with survival after death, with
the spiritual elements in the universe? I think that all the phenomena
generally described by such terms as animism, ancestor-worship, or be-
lief in spirits and ghosts, have their root in man's integral attitude
towards death. It is not mere philosophical reflection on the phenomena
of death, nor yet mere curiosity, nor observations on dreams, apparitions,
or trances, which really matter. Death as the extinction of one's own
personality, or the disappearance of those who are near, who are loved,
who have been friends and partners in life, is a fact which will always
baffle human understanding and fundamentally upset the emotional con-
stitution of man. It is a fact about which science and rational philosophy
can tell nothing. It cuts across all human calculations. It thwarts all
practical and rational efforts of man.

And here religious revelation steps in and affirms life after death, the
immortality of the spirit, the possibilities of communion between living
and dead. This revelation gives sense to Ufe, and solves the contradic-
tions and conflicts connected with the transience of human existence on
earth. Religion, moreover, does not merely affirm an abstract truth as
an idle comfort for thought and emotion. Through the revealed truth,
and on its foundations, religion tells man how to behave, how to enter
into relationship with the dead, how to better their existence and to
gain their favour and assistance in turn. Mortuary ritual is the enact-
ment of the truth of immortality. And, since the relations between
living and dead are based on the moral principle of give and take; since
they carry over the affection and mutual assistance from this world
across the dividing line, they supply the supernatural sanction for family
ethics. The affection of parents for their children, founded as it is in
the physiology of reproduction, receives an additional dimension. Parents
value their children and have to look after them with an additional con-
cern, because, after death, they will be dependent on their services. The
children grow up in a system under which parents and forebears are not
only the dispensers of the good things of this world, but even after
death will be able to assist or to harm with a supernatural might.

I have enlarged upon the one aspect of religion, illustrated by perhaps

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS

315

the most important myth of the Trobrianders and their most elaborate
ritual, because I am convinced that the concern in the immortality of
the soul is one of the two principal sources of religious inspiration. This
belief is not in its essence a philosophical doctrine. It does not encroach
upon the domain of knowledge. It is the outcome of the deepest human
cravings, the result of that desire for continuity in human life and the
traditional relationship between the generations, which is the -very es-
sence of human culture. Ceremonies and rites which immediately follow
the death of an individual, services at burial, the commemoration of
and the communion with the dead, are universal and are perhaps the
most conspicuous phenomena of human religions. They are all the expres-
sion of this one main source of human faith, the desire for immortality.

What about the other myths and ceremonies which we have met in
our brief survey of Trobriand reUgion? They consist mostly of my-
thology connected with magic — magic of love and of gardens, of war
and of ceremonial exchange, of hunting, fishing, and sailing. Here we
have an entirely different dogmatic element. The affirmation contained
in this type of myth refers to a primeval power which man wielded
over the unconquered and unconquerable forces of nature. Thus in one
myth we are told that, since rain was born of a woman, she and her
kindred, being of the nature of rain, were able to control it completely.
The birth of rain was a miracle, and through this miracle man in a
certain lineage was given the power of re-enacting minor miracles. In
the same way, some people brought the magic of love with them. The
myth tells us how the force of its magic was once revealed in breaking
through the strongest prohibition, that of incest between brother and
sister. That miracle, dreadful and wonderful at the same time, is the
pattern on which at present the minor miracles of love-magic are be-
lieved to be possible. In pursuits where there is well-founded knowledge
and where practice and hard work achieve part of the results, magic is
resorted to in order to overcome those forces and elements which are
governed only by chance. Thus in agriculture, in hunting and fishing,
in war and in dangerous sailing, magic effects in a spiritual manner
that which man cannot attain by his own efforts. Here the relation of
mythologically founded dogma and ritual is as close as in the case of
the communion between living and dead. It is only because man is in
need of magic wherever his forces fail him that he must believe in his
magical power, which is vouched for by myth. On the other hand, the
primeval myth of the magical miracle is confirmed and repeated in every
act of subsequent magic.

What is the common measure of all these beliefs in man's magical
power, primeval and present? They are of the same substance as our
belief in Providence. In almost every myth which has a charter of
magical efficacy we have the affirmation of a fundamental bond of union

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CULTURE AND MYTH

between man and the forces of nature and destiny. The mythology,
which assigns common parentage to a particular lineage of man with
rain or the fertility of plants, an animal species or wind, establishes a
common measure between man and the relevant aspects of his environ-
ment. It submits those forces of rain, weather, fertility, vegetation, and
fauna, which man needs, yet cannot practically master, to a superadded,
supernatural control. Whether we call this type of belief totemism or
zoolatry, or the religion of Mana, or preanimism, they achieve one main
end. They humanize the outer world; they put man in harmony with
his environment and destiny; they give him an inkling of a working
Providence in the surrounding universe.

Here again it is very important to realize that the whole substance
of Trobriand magic — and this is also true of Central Australian totem-
ism, or of the fertility ritual of the Pueblo Indians, or of the rain
ceremonial of the divine kings of Africa — remains completely outside
the legitimate domain of science. It is an indispensable complement or
counterpart of man's practical activities, but it never confuses or stulti-
fies them.

(Ill V

TOXEMIC MIRACLES OF THE DESERT

We must, however, turn to some other ethnographic area and look at
the facts more in detail once again. Unfortunately, few cultures have
been studied with the all-round interest so indispensable to all func-
tional analyses, that is, analyses of the mutual influence of religion and
ordinary life, of magic and economics. We know a great deal, however,
about the beliefs and practices of a small group of people in Central
Australia, thanks mainly to the pioneering work of Spencer and Gillen.

Their ordinary existence, common to men and women, and concerned
with the obtaining of food, with amusements, and the daily round of
camp life, is based upon a different type of tradition. There is a body
of rules, handed from one generation to another, which refers to the
manner in which people live in their little shelters, make their fire by
friction, collect their food and cook it, make love to each other, and
quarrel. This secular tradition consists partly of customary or legal rules,
determining the manner in which social life is conducted. But it also
embodies rules of technique and behaviour in regard to environment.
It is this aspect of secular tradition which corresponds to knowledge or
science. The rules which we find here are completely independent of
magic, of supernatural sanctions, and they are never accompanied by
any ceremonial or ritual elements. When the native has to produce an
implement, he does not refer to magic. He is strictly empirical, that is,

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS

317

scientific, in the choice of his material, in the manner in which he
strikes, cuts, and polishes the blade. He relies completely on his skill, on
his reason, and his endurance. There is no exaggeration in saying that
in all matters where knowledge is sufficient the native relies on it ex-
clusively. If you want to appreciate the amount of such knowledge, as
well as the practical skill necessary for the production of the technologi-
cal apparatus of the Central Australians, study chapters xxvi and xxvii
in volume II of The Arunta, by Spencer and Gillen. The authors refer
to the judicious choice of material suitable for a ground axe, or again
for a chipped one. They tell us that in one case the "shape and finish is
simply a question of material available," or again, we find that the
hafting, in technique and material, depends on the purpose for which it
is made. That this secular tradition is plastic, selective, and intelligent,
and also well founded, can be seen from the fact that the native always
adopts any new and suitable material. "Even amongst tribes that have
had very little intercourse with white men, iron is beginning to replace
stone." We might add that bottle-glass is rapidly ousting quartz or
obsidian, woven materials are used instead of animal skins or bark-cloth,
and kerosene- tins in Australia, as elsewhere, have become the most widely
used water-vessels.

In his organized hunting the native also obeys an entirely secular
tradition. He displays a great deal of skill, but also a considerable amount
of knowledge, in stalking the kangaroo or wallaby, in following the emu
and the euro. He knows the habits of the game, their watering-spots,
the characteristics of the terrain. His capacities for finding his way
where the European would get lost, in discovering hidden water or
food-supplies inaccessible to the white man, are well knovv^n from the
history of early exploration in Australia.

In short, the Central Australian possesses genuine science or knowl-
edge, that is, tradition completely controlled by experience and reason,
and completely unaffected by any mystical elements. I am emphasizing
this because, in order to understand the supernatural, we have to see
how the natural is defined in a given culture. The distinction, I believe,
is universal. It is a mistake to assume that, at an early stage of develop-
ment, man lived in a confused world, where the real and the unreal
formed a medley, where mysticism and reason were as interchangeable
as forged and real coin in a disorganized country. To us the most es-
sential point about magic and religious ritual is that it steps in only
where knowledge fails. Supernaturally founded ceremonial grows out
of life, but it never stultifies the practical efforts of man. In his ritual of
magic or religion, man attem.pts to enact miracles, not because he ig-
nores the limitations of his mental powers, but, on the contrary, be-
cause he is fully cognizant of them. To go one step farther, the recogni-
tion of this seems to me indispensable if we want once and for ever to

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CULTURE AND MYTH

establish the truth that rehgion has its own subject-matter, its own
legitimate field of development; that this must never encroach on the
domain where science, reason, and experience ought to remain supreme.
To-day this truth is important, not so much perhaps in the clash be-
tween science and rehgion, but rather in the encroachment of political,
economic, and pseudo-cultural doctrines of the Fascist and Communist
types upon the preserves of legitimate religion.

The Stone Age primitives whom we are considering, the Central Aus-
tralians, do not make such a mistake. Their sacred tradition is con-
cerned only with those things where experience and reason are of no
avail. The Central Australian may be guided by his own excellent knowl-
edge in hunting and collecting, in finding water and in preparing his
implements, but one thing he cannot control, and that is the general
fertility of his environment, which depends upon the rainfall. If this be
adequate, then **as if by magic, the once arid land becomes covered
with luxuriant herbage"; plants, insects, marsupials, and birds abound,
and the native's prosperity sets in. If, on the other hand, the rainfall
fails, the species do not multiply, and he is faced with starvation and
misery.

Now in order to appreciate the essential difference between the tech-
nique of magical and ceremonial life on the one hand, and that of
ordinary economic activities on the other, let me once more describe
one totemic ceremony in detail. Were we to arrive at the proper time
of the year, before the beginning of the rains, somewhere near Alice
Springs in Central Australia, we could witness a typical ceremony, that
of the witchetty grub totem, and observe the behaviour of the men,
which is not that of ordinary everyday routine. Those who are about
to take part in the ceremony have to leave the camp quietly; they slink
out to a meeting-place which is not far off, but which is not supposed
to be known to any one who does not belong to the totem group. Only
a few of the older men of this group will remain in the camp, to keep
an eye on what is happening there. The performers are thus a group
united by the bonds of totemic identity; they are all reincarnations of
mythological ancestors, who once roamed the country and used to per-
form ceremonies identical in substance with the ones which their de-
scendants are performing now. The group is organized: there is a leader;
there are distinctions according to age, degree of initiation, and of tradi-
tional knowledge.

The men adopt a behaviour, costume, and a mental attitude entirely
different from that of ordinary life. No one is allowed to carry weapons
or decorations; they must go quite unarmed, naked, discarding even the
hair-girdle, which is the one constant article of clothing worn by men.
Only the very old men are allowed to eat; the others, we are told, must
on no account partake of any food until the whole ceremony is over.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS

319

Even if some game is caught, this must be handed over to the old men.
It is not only the season which is determined, but also the time of day.
They start at dusk, so that they can spend the first night at a special
camp. Place, like time, is strictly defined by tradition, which in this, as
in everything else, follows mythological precedent.

In fact, since the whole country has been created with close reference
to the concern and interests of man, above all to his ceremonial pre-
occupations, there exists what might be described as a totemic geography
or, at least, topography of specially sacred spots, which have been de-
fined as the result of ceremonial activities of the past.-^^

Every prominent, and many an insignificant, natural feature through-
out this strip of country — the most picturesque part of the great central
area of the continent — has some history attached to it. For example, a
gaunt old gum tree, with a large projecting bole about the middle of the
trunk, indicates the exact spot where an Alchera man, who was very
full of eggs, arose when he was transformed out of a witchetty grub
(The Arunta, p. 327).

It is in this scenery, impregnated with traditional memories of ancestral
acts, that the ceremonies take place.

Each ancestral act was a creative miracle producing either a perma-
nent feature of the landscape, or a sacred implement, or else directly
producing animals or plants. For the time of the totemic ancestors was
largely taken up with the enactment of totemic miracles, ceremonies
through which individuals belonging to plant or animal species were
created. And the rites of to-day are nothing else but repetitions, as exact
as possible, of the ancient miracles, the tradition of which is preserved
from generation to generation, not merely in memory, but also by the
very fact that year after year they are performed, and their dramatic
substance thus perpetuated in the behaviour of man.

The aim of the ceremonies is the same as it was; the technique is
identical and so is the social organization on which they are based. For,
as already mentioned, even the members of the present-day group are
the incarnations of individuals who lived in the Golden Age. Only the
ceremonies have abated as regards miraculous intensity. To-day the
totemic people cannot create mountains or canyons, cannot produce

Cf. The Arunta, Vol. I, Chapt. V, where the formation of the landscape by the
creative acts of the original world -makers is described. On pp. 88-91 a minute description
with plans and diagrams is given of the spot at which the present ceremony takes place.
This should be collated with the account of the ceremony in Vol. I, pp. 148-53. The
mythological story of how both landscape and ceremony originated will be found
on pp. 326-34. I am giving this information, since the writers do not cross-reference.
The fact that they are apparently not aware how important is the parallelism be-
tween myth, ceremony, and the spiritual essence of the landscape increases the docu-
mentary value of their material.

320

CULTURE AND MYTH

fresh animal species or individuals, cannot change the shape of man or
nature. The only thing which they can achieve is to contribute towards
the fertility of their own totemic species.

Let us once more join our witchetty grub local clan and follow their
ceremonial behaviour on the morning when they start their beneficent
ritual. First of all they have to provide themselves with the liturgical
implements; the men have to pluck twigs from the eucalyptus, while
the leader carries a small wooden trough. This latter represents the
meimba, the sacred vessel in which the culture hero, called Intwailiuka,
carried his store of spirits and sacred bull-roarers. Here again the mytho-
logical implement, the original meimba, was miraculous in the extreme;
its counter-part to-day still carries, as we shall see, some of its magical
power. Provided with their liturgical implements, the natives now fol-
low, with their leader in front, the path traversed by Intwailiuka, the
totemic ancestor, who first created the ceremony and also the landscape.
They reach the Great Cavity, high up on the western wall of the ravine.
In spite of its name, it is only a shallow cave with a large block of
quartzite surrounded by smaller stones. The culture hero was of course
also responsible for producing these stones miraculously, and they repre-
sent the large body of the witchetty grub, which is the totemic animal
of the group, whilst the small stones are the eggs. The head man of the
group begins to sing, tapping the stone with his wooden trough, while
the other men tap it with their twigs, and also chant songs. We are not
given the text of these, but the authors tell us that the burden of them
is an invitation to the animal to lay eggs. Complicated manipulations
follow: the ceremonial stones are tapped with twig and trough; the
leader takes up one of the smaller stones and strikes each man in the
stomach, telling him, "You have eaten much food." The tapping of the
stone produces grubs; the magical songs invite the animal to lay eggs;
the anatomical ritual refers to the satiety which follows the plentiful
supply of grubs, which again is the theme of the magic.

We cannot follow in detail all the acts. We should have to chant
further with the natives at a place where the totemic ancestor used to
cook, pulverize, and eat the grub. He was a great producer and also
apparently a Gargantuan consumer of his totem. Then we should have
to repair to the drawings {op. ciL, Fig. 44, facing p. 141), which were
placed on the rocks, not by Intwailiuka, the totemic ancestor, but by
Numbakulla, the First Creator. These drawings, as a matter of fact,
also refer to subsequent events by one of those proleptic or prophetic
acts of creation by which the First Creator anticipated the future. The
totemic ancestor Intwailiuka used to stand here, throwing up the face
of the rock numbers of sacred bull-roarers, and this is imitated now by
the leader of the performing group. Although we are not told so ex-
pHcitly, this also obviously contributes towards the fertility of the

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS

321

grub. A number of other ceremonial spots are visited; once more they
chant, carrying on ritual activities in imitation of ancestral acts; over
and over again the leader repeats the words, *'You have eaten much
food," thus magically anticipating plenty. There seem to be some ten of
such spots, and at each of them the ceremony is carried out again. The
totemic group of performers then move back towards the main camp,
and not far from it they are met by the rest of the local population,
men and women alike, who henceforth play a small and collateral part
in the rest of the proceedings.

One element of these latter must be mentioned. While the totemic
performers had been away, a long, narrow hut had been built, which is
intended to represent the chrysalis case from which the fully developed
insect emerges. When the party return, the people of the other moieties
and the women assemble behind this hut-chrysalis. They range themselves,
men of the other moiety in one group, the women of the same moiety
in another, the women of the other moiety in a third. The totemic and
class differentiations come always very much to the fore in such cere-
monies. Now, in and around this hut-chrysalis, an important stage of
the ceremony is performed, the men wriggling in and out, chanting
songs about the animals in their various stages and about the sacred
stones with magical import, created in ancestral, mythological times.

The most characteristic feature of the subsequent phase of the cere-
mony, where others participate, is the kind of ceremonial or magical
give and take. This can only be understood by referring it to the social
organization of these natives and to certain economic principles of their
ceremonialism. The rites for the multiplication of the totemic species
can be performed only by the members of the clan. It is not only their
privilege, but also their duty towards the community as a whole, to
carry out such rites. The natives believe deeply that the fertility of ani-
mals and plants depends on the magical co-operation of the totemic clans.
Most totems are edible animals and plants, and apparently there is no
important food-supply but is represented on the totemic list. There can
therefore be no doubt that, in the aborigines' economic conception of
the world, totemic co-operation is indispensable to human existence. The
essence of this as a system among the Arunta consists, therefore, in each
clan carrying out the ceremonial for the benefit of the rest. Although a
man is not absolutely forbidden to eat of his totem, he eats sparingly,
usually not at all, and he is debarred from eating the best part of his
totem animal, when this is large and succulent, as the emu, the kanga-
roo, or the wallaby.^^ The clan as a whole, therefore, derives little if any
benefit from its ceremony.

The ceremonial by-play which now takes place must be considered
against the background of this totemic co-operation. The performing

" Cf. The Arunta, pp. 80-87.

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CULTURE AND MYTH

party are expected by the others; they are welcomed by them, and at
certain stages they receive food, which has been cooked for them, while
they in return distribute some of their ornaments to the other people.
The leader says: "Our increase ceremony is finished, the Mnlyamikxt
(men of the other moiety) must have these things, or else our increase
ceremony will not be successful, and so harm will come to us." Then the
men of the other moiety approach, and the objects are divided among
them.^^

Tlie dependence of present-day religious ceremonial on the supernatural
reality of the Golden Age manifests itself in every detail of the above
account. As regards the nature of the acts, that is, the magical rites, we
can see at once that they have nothing to do with any practical work.
To describe that sort of magic as pseudo-science, or the primitive
counterpart of science, is not correct. There is in many details of the
ceremonial an element of imitation, but the imitation is not of the ani-
mal, nor is it based on natural history. It is the imitation of ancestral
behaviour, and it is based on the sacred tradition of myths. The native
identifies himself with his totemic animal, but here again the identifica-
tion is not between man as he is to-day and the kangaroo, emu, or grub
as it now exists. In his ceremonial life, man becomes Alchera, that is,
totemic ancestor, and he acts as an Alchera. The witchetty grub man
goes back to the Golden Age, in which men and women of this clan
were supposed "to have been full of eggs which are now represented by
rounded water-worn stones," many of which, as we have seen, are actu-
ally manipulated in the sacred ceremony. Every act of this, and of any
other, totemic ceremony in Central Australia is not an imitation of the
animal species, but an imitation of the primeval, supernatural, half-
animals half -men of which mythology teaches, and which were the an-
cestors of the present-day clan.

The Alchera were creative in a supernatural sense; the powers and
influence of magic are again creative and supernatural in the very same
sense, but with enormously reduced intensity. The supernatural, to the
Arunta, is that power which the totemic ancestors fully possessed, since
they were able to create the world, transform the landscape, make men,
animals, and plants, and institute social order, customs, and ceremonies.
Of this power man participates only in those activities which are cere-
monial, and which have been handed down from the Alchera. In all
other things man can only achieve what he produces by hard labour, by
skill, and on the basis of his empirical knowledge.

In the analysis of the Central Australian tribes we have again found

^The full account of this ceremony will be found in Native Tribes, pp. 170 sqq.,
and in The Arunta, Vol. I, pp. 148 sqq. Comparing the latter, which is also the later
book, the student will be interested to note that the amplifications emphasize even more
strongly the dependence of ritual on tradition.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS

323

a confirmation of our theory of myth and sacred tradition. We were
able to arrive at conclusions which emphasized the profound difTerence
between acts achieved by magic and religion, on the one hand, and
those based on knowledge, on the other. This distinction is necessary for
our theory of myth; it also implies this theory. Sacred tradition, we
perceive more and more clearly, does not explain things; it tells us how
they were created. This is not a scientific explanation, but a religious
truth.

Let us go one step farther. What is the place of ceremonial or magic
or ritual or religion, or whatever you like to call it, within the scheme
of culture? What does the whole totemic ritual contribute to the tribal
life of a Central Australian? From one point of view, we have to class
it as a delusion or superstition, following in this the footsteps of Tylor.
But there are elements in it which must be appraised in an entirely dif-
ferent manner. Taking native mythology and ritual together, we see
that they contain two elements. From the dogmatic point of view, the
creation of the world, the natural affinity between men and animals and
plants, the reinterpretaticn of the landscape and all the natural features
in terms of human interest, one and all establish a deep bond between
man and his environment. Here, once more, we find a belief closely
akin to our idea of a beneficent Providence, even as we have found
another counterpart in the Trobriands. The Central Australian, living
as he does in an arid, inhospitable, hostile country, has developed a sys-
tem of beliefs which humanize the environment. Above all, the mythology
and its dogmatic contents establish a close affinity between the socially
organized groups of the natives and the vast range of animal and plant
species, including most, probably all, of those which are useful to man.
The limited knowledge of the Central Australian allows him to collect
plants, grubs, and small marsupials, and to hunt the bigger animals. It
allows him to produce the implements which he needs for this purpose,
and the clothing and ornaments necessary in that climate. Where his
knowledge fails him, where his scientifically logical and empirically ori-
entated mind tells him that no effort of his body or mind will bring
any results, there sacred tradition steps in.

Pragmatically speaking, this tradition helps him in the effective carry-
ing out of his practical work. At the time when rains are due to come,
and favourable weather may either fulfil his great expectations or ad-
verse drought blight all his hopes, the native, instead of merely waiting
in idle and demoralizing anxiety, marks time in carrying out his totemic
ceremonies. Mythology teaches him that these ceremonies will contribute
towards the fulfilment of his hopes. Far from being a harmful delusion
which diverts his energies from useful pursuits, totemism brings about
an integration of the individual mind, and an organization of collective
activities, both directed towards the desired end. Magic is a system of col-

324

CULTURE AND MYTH

lective suggestion, which at that critical season tells the Central Aus-
tralian that all will be well, on condition that man obeys the behests of
tradition and enters into communion with the supernatural essence of his
world.

We have seen above that the totemic increase ceremonies are based
on the ethical principle of co-operative services rendered by each totemic
group to the whole community. That the benefits are, from the rational
point of view, illusory does not diminish the ethical elements contained
in this work done unselfishly for the benefit of others. It would be
possible to go even farther and to show that the totemic ritual of the
Central Australians exercises an important influence on the development
of purely economic virtues. The ceremonies foster foresight, regularity,
and organization of effort; they involve, perhaps, the greatest quantity
of collective labour carried out by these natives. The fact that purely
religious ceremonial creates labour-gangs, trained to work systematically,
to obey the leadership of one man, to work for the benefit of the com-
munity as a whole, with direct reference to practical ends, is of no mean
importance for economic evolution.

I am enlarging on this, because the real importance of the so-called
functional method in modern anthropology consists in the parallel study
of mutually dependent phenomena or aspects of tribal life. The func-
tional principle teaches that if you want to understand magic, you must
go outside magic, and study economic ritual within the context of those
practical activities in which it is really embedded. This principle, the
theoretical importance of which I first conceived from the excellent
material of Spencer and Gillen, I have later applied in field-work.

In the appreciation of Melanesian magic there is perhaps no more im-
portant truth to be recognized than its influence upon practical activities
and the way in which it is determined by them. Those who glance over
the pages of one or two of my books {Argonauts y but especially Coral
Gardens) will find that m^agic is essentially an integrating and organizing
force. It provides that spiritual strengthening of the individual mind and
that discipline and preparation of the group which are necessary when-
ever the natives are confronted with a task difficult and not altogether
controllable by knowledge and skill. Take their sailing, for instance. In
the construction of their canoes, the organization of their crew, their
choice of season, route, and sailing technique, they depend on a rational
tradition. But the vicissitudes of sailing — wind and weather, reefs and
calms — are beyond the control of Trobriander and European alike. So
also, to a certain extent, is the reliability of the material from which a
canoe is built, and the human element which the Trobriander will meet

This was the thesis of my earliest essay, written in English and published under the
title "The Economic Aspect of the Intichiuma Ceremonies," in Festskjijt tillagnad Edvard
W estennarcf{, Helsingfors, 1912.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS

325

at the other end of his expedition. For these unaccountable, uncon-
trollable elements, there exists magic: of mist and of wind, of shipwreck
and of malevolence, of success in trading, and of benevolence of poten-
tial enemies. Individually, this magic means for every man confidence,
optimism, preparedness. Socially, this magic emphasizes the prestige of
its master. It gives him additional power and adds an element of strength
to the social organization of the crew and of the whole body of the
sailing expedition.

In agriculture, as I have shown with an almost tedious elaboration of
detail, the same also obtains. Magic never encroaches on rational and
practical work. The domain of intelligent effort and enlightened per-
sistence on the one hand, of good luck on the other, are mutually ex-
clusive. But magic adds to the zest and beauty of work: it introduces
rhythm, punctuality, discipline, and order into the collective activities
of the gardening team; it provides this team with a leader.

While the Australian evidence shows that economic virtues may be
developed by magic in anticipation of their subsequent utility in organ-
ized production, the conditions in the Trobriand Islands present us with
the economic function of magic fully established. An intermediate stage
in this development we might perhaps find in the fertility ceremonies of
the Pueblo Indians, with which we shall deal very briefly, only showing
that the functional nature of myth and ritual in that area falls within
the scope of our analysis.

(Ill VI

THE EVIDENCE OF OTHER ETHNOGRAPHIC AREAS

In a brief and simple statement of anthropological theory it is always
best to demonstrate the principles by giving one or two examples, taken
from well-known and fully documented areas. I have based my conclu-
sions on Central Australia because our material is exceptionally good,
and on the Trobriand Islands because I know this region from personal
experience. What about the wider validity of the present theory?

I have been attempting to demonstrate that the substance of religion,
that is, its subject-matter, is not arbitrary. The twin beliefs in immor-
tality and in Providence grow out of the necessities of human life. They
step in as all-powerful, beneficent cultural forces, integrating the indi-
vidual mind and organizing social grouping. The two beliefs, moreover,
as we have seen, would not be alive if they were mere abstract formulae.
They are believed because they are human experiences present and past.
All religion is founded on revealed truth because man had to experience
the reality of the supernatural in order to accept it. This revelation may
be contemporary: miracles must occur, and do occur, in every live

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CULTURE AND MYTH

religion. As a rule, however, the great miracles of religion come from the
past. They are handed down through an age-long, venerable tradition.
Conformity, whole-hearted submission to traditional biddings, is perhaps
the most important moral force in any healthy society, primitive or
civilized. The existence of such ethical influence we have fully estab-
lished both in Central Australia and in the Trobriand beUef in spirit
life and magical power. The other active and pragmatic manifestation
of every religious beUef is the enactment of limited miracles of magic
and ritual.

In one way, perhaps, it is the concept of miracle which forms the
core of my theoretical approach. The word "miracle" is, in theology,
restricted to more spectacular events, above all to the tangible, concrete,
sensuously appreciable workings of supernatural force, which fall out-
side the established course of nature. Thus the theologian would class
the production of wine at Cana, the multiplication of bread and fishes,
the resurrection of Lazarus, as miracles, but he would refuse the title
of miracle to the supernatural processes which take place in the Sacra-
ment.^* For the theologian regards these events as falling under the law
of nature of the supernatural.

I submit, however, that the anthropologist, or any scientific student of
the history of religions, must redefine the crude, popular language which,
in this case, the theologian seems inclined to accept. To the scientific
mind any event in which supernatural forces manifest themselves,
whether to the bodily eyes or to the vision of faith, must belong to the
same category. The transformation of the earthly substance of bread and
wine into the real body and blood of Jesus Christ, for instance, is a
miracle in so far as the Real Presence is assumed. Again, the complete
change of the substance of the human soul in the sacrament of the re-
mission of sins is as genuine a miracle as a complete change in bodily
metabolism produced, let us say, by the water of Lourdes. In one way,
the scientific approach is here more religious and reverent than that of
the theologian. The anthropologist dissociates himself resolutely from
doubting Thomas and the theologian alike; he places the spiritual reality
assumed by religious faith on the same level as the material reality ac-
cessible to the senses. Actually, what the scientist follows in his classifica-
tion is the whole cultural setting and attitude of the faithful. He draws
the line of distinction, not by the naive, crude criteria of sight, sound,
touch, or smell, as opposed to mystical experience. The line of demarca-
tion must be scientifically drawn between phenomena where nothing but
physical events occur, and those where supernatural forces enter as cause
or effect.

Let me exemplify my point by the miracle of Bolsena. Here we have a

^* Cf. the articles s.v. "Miracles" in Hastings' Encyclopaedia and the Roman Catholic
Efjcyclopaedia.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS

327

genuine myth, not only attested by Catholic writers, but embodied in
one of the most magnificent churches of Christendom, and in some of
the most famous paintings, notably the Stanza of Rafael. Those who
have seen the latter, especially the detail of the bleeding Host, those who
have visited the Cathedral of Orvieto, where the miracle is confirmed by
the sacred relic and represented in fresco and enamel work, will realize
how myth becomes monumentally translated into works of art. The
story itself tells how a Bohemian priest, sceptical as to the doctrine of
transubstantiation, became convinced by a miracle which occurred be-
tween his own fingers while he was celebrating the Holy Mass in the
town of Bolsena. In the very act of consecration, and between the words,
he had an access of doubt, and then the miracle happened. Blood over-
flowed in the chalice; the Host became covered with drops of blood; the
whole congregation saw this. Indeed, the whole of Christendom was so
impressed by this visible manifestation of the Real Presence that the
Pope not only ordered the building of the Cathedral of Orvieto, but also
instituted the festival of Corpus Christi. We have here in one event the
ritual consequence of the myth.

But what is really important here is the relation between the ordinary
miracle of consecration and its spectacular manifestation at Bolsena.
From the religious point of view it would be worse than heresy to afiirm
that the true miracle of our religion, the Real Presence of the body
and blood of Jesus Christ, was any more genuine, or real, or factual on
that one occasion than on any other.^^ The miracle did not change any-
thing in the true substance of the mystical reality. It was merely a sign;
but even this sign to the truly faithful is unnecessary, since the sacra-
ment itself is the sign. Where does the miracle then reside? Its reality
lies in the invisible grace which makes the sacrament of transubstantia-
tion the very epitome of everything that the Catholic believes: the in-
carnation of the Second Person of the Trinity, His sacrifice on Calvary,
and the institution of the sacrament by which He perpetually reappears
on earth and unites Himself with every believer in the Sacrament of the
Communion.

From this one example we can see that the only scientifically correct
definition of miracle is as an event in which supernatural realities are
created by ritual acts. The miracle of magic, the utterances of words,
and the performance of gesture are supernatural forces which, through
a supernatural mechanism, bring about natural events. In the miracles
of sacrifice or sacrament we have again words and gestures which bring
about events as real and true, but supersensuous because spiritual in
nature. The reality of both has to be vouched for by experience: we
know that the Sacrament of Communion is true because it was instituted

am writing this, of course, as a good anthropologist, from the strictly Roman
Catholic point of view, in which, moreover, I was brought up.

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CULTURE AND MYTH

by Jesus Christ during the Last Supper, and also because at every Com-
munion the behever mystically experiences the divine grace which comes
from the union with God. We know that the miracles at Lourdes are
true, because there is a running tradition of miraculous healing, but
above all, because the Virgin Mary appeared to the poor shepherdess.

And here we come immediately upon the very essence of myth: it is
above all, as has been so often emphasized, the affirmation of primeval
miracles. I think it would be interesting to survey from this point of
view other examples of belief and ritual. There is no doubt that in some
religions the element of the miraculous is almost negligible. Let us take
an area known to me from a four weeks' visit, in which I was, however,
conducted by an expert anthropologist who had remained there two years.
Dr. L A. Richards, to whom I am entirely indebted for the following
information, given me both in the field and in London. The religious
life of these people, the Bemba of Northern Rhodesia, is almost com-
pletely devoid of anything which would fall into the category of the
directly miraculous. They very seldom even ask for a specific result of
prayer, sacrifice, or rite. The ancestral spirits are asked for blessings in
general, for peace, health, and prosperity of the land. "May we go in
peace, give us life, give us children." The spirits are begged in general
to promote the welfare of the group, heal sickness, or bring rain.

Consequently, since there is no definite request or attempt to bring
about a specific effect, there is very little need for an empirical testimony
of clear-cut results. The mythology of the Bemba is accordingly ex-
tremely poor. But even they have a legendary cycle connected with the
first man who, from the north-west, entered the territory at present oc-
cupied by the tribe. This man, Lucelenganga, received the knowledge of
medicine and of magic from the High God. Before that, "All the magical
trees and herbs were in the country, but we did not know how to use
them." The tradition was carried on because Lucelenganga selected the
most intelligent men living and taught them the magic of healing medi-
cine. This legendary background is not a mere story, but lives in ritual.
The witch-doctor, shinganga, to-day calls upon Leza the High God when
digging his herbs and roots, and addresses Lucelenganga by name vv^hen
mixing his medicines or divining. A witch-doctor utters these words:
"You, Lucelenganga, who left your footsteps on the rock and the foot-
steps of your dog, give strength to my medicine." Or else he repeats the
same initial words and says ". . . make the words of my divination
true." A witch-doctor has also to add the names of the actual ancestors
or predecessors from whom he has bought or learnt the use of the medi-
cine. The footsteps mentioned in the incantation refer to a natural fea-
ture in the landscape which the natives still show, and which they at-
tribute to the heavy tread of Lucelenganga as he first passed through the
country.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS

329

We have here, therefore, not a complete absence of mythology, but
rather mythology reduced to a bare outhne. In its sober and limited way,
we have the same appeal to the continuity of tradition, the same refer-
ence to the divine sources of supernatural power. The mentioning of
names of predecessors and of ancestors is, incidentally, a very prominent
feature of the Melanesian language of magic.

From my very rapid and rather superficial survey of East African
tribes, I have come to the conclusion that mythology is not completely
absent, though it plays a far more limited part than in Melanesia or in
Central Australia. But here only very careful analysis of the character
of ritual and its supernatural context, with direct reference to what
might be called the historical records of the effects of ritual, can give a
satisfactory answer. For mythology flourishes not only in the dim, distant
past: there is also the living, current mythology of contemporary mira-
cle or supernatural manifestation of divine power. In Lourdes such my-
thology is recorded in the scientifically attested chronicle of miraculous
healings. Manifestations of the supernatural power of saints are recorded
again in the chronicles of Roman Catholic hagiology. Such records have
to be kept, because the canonization of saints is contingent on the oc-
currence of at least two well-attested miracles. Christian Science, spirit-
ism, faith healing, palmistry attract and retain their faithful, or their
customers, by alleged empirical proof or claim of miracles achieved.

Once we define myth as a sacred tradition which exists in order to
attest the reality of any specific vehicle, channel, or mechanism by which
the supernatural can be tapped or moved, it becomes quite clear that, on
the one hand, it is idle to argue whether there are myths unconnected
with religion. On the other hand, it is equally barren to study any re-
ligious ritual or ethics without seeking to discover how far the dogmas
involved have that empirical and historical background of attested oc-
currences which we define as the only legitimate sphere of mythology or
sacred tradition.

The point of view, therefore, here adopted with regard to myth really
turns on the question whether we define myth in a purely mechanical and
formal way, or functionally, that is, by the role it performs in culture.
As long as the purely formal approach dominates, we shall have in
ethnography collections of "folk-lore" and descriptions of "ritual" and
"ceremonialism" entirely unrelated to each other, and it will be difficult
to prove the point of the present theory, or to appreciate the living reality
of religion in such artificially dissected material. The formal point of view
of which I am complaining still does predominate. Even a competent
American anthropologist tells us that it is quite impossible "to generalise

^® Cf. the present writer's Coral Gardens and their Magic, Vol. II, part vi, "An
Ethnographic Theory of the Magical Word," and part vii, "Magical Formulae."

330

CULTURE AND MYTH

as to the degree to which myth is dynamic in religion." This miscon-
ception is based simply on a formal and, to me, barren definition of the
term "myth." This writer, incidentally, affirms that the "dairy ritual of
the Todas seems unsupported in myth, and the gods mentioned in the
prayers are on the level of mere abracadabra" {loc. cit.). Yet the student
who turns to the source, the book by W. H. R. Rivers on the Todas, can
see from pp. 182 sqq.y and also p. 246, that a knowledge of their mythol-
ogy is indispensable in order to understand the ceremonies and the prayers
connected with the dairy or with the village. The prayers contain "refer-
ences to various incidents in the lives of the gods, and many of the clauses
would be unintelligible without a knowledge of these lives." The Toda
god is distinctly anthropomorphic, lives the same life as the present-day
Toda, and tends his dairies and buffaloes. So close is the relation between
present-day life and the mythological background that the Todas regard
their sacred dairies as the property of the gods, while the dairymen are
looked upon as priests. Indeed, Rivers tells us that there was "a period
when gods and men inhabited the hills together. The gods ruled the men,
ordained how they should live and originated the various customs of the
people"; and again, "According to tradition, the most sacred dairies . . .
date back to the time when the gods were active on earth and were them-
selves dairymen."

This is, I think, sufficient to show how badly my critic has selected her
negative example to prove the inadequacy of my theories. Were we en-
gaged in a specialized anthropological discussion, it would be possible and
also advisable to scrutinize the material presented by Rivers about the
Todas more in detail. It would confirm our theory of myth and its rela-
tion to ritual, and the essential correlation between ethics and religion.
We might discuss some of the interesting material collected by Professor
Radcliffe-Brown on the mythology and religious ritual of the Andaman
Islanders, and their influence one on the other. I should have liked to join
issue with this author in his theoretical interpretation of myth. For he
regards myth as a form of primitive philosophy by which early man estab-
lishes his system of social values. These latter, however, Radcliffe-Brown
does not attempt to correlate with practical activities.

Polynesian mythology and its place in religion would lend itself es-
pecially well to a functional analysis of the ethical and cultural influence
of tradition.

The area, however, to which I should like to refer the specialist, and
about which I should like to say a few words to the general reader, is that
known in ethnography as the Pueblos. To the popular imagination they
have been made attractive by the writings of D. H. Lawrence and Aldous
Huxley, by the glamour of their archaeological past still surviving in

Dr. Ruth Benedict in the article on "Myth" in the Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences,
New York, 1933.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS

331

mighty ruins, and by the legendary stories which have hung round them
ever since the early Spanish explorations. We have also some really good
anthropological material on these people, and, what is useful to the lay-
man, one or two excellent summaries of their main cultural and social
characteristics.-^^

The religion of these Indians is dominated completely by their depend-
ency on rain and sunshine, by their interest in their fields, and also by
their desire for the fertility of women. The religion is carried out partly
in the form of public ceremonies, partly by private prayers and offerings.
These are directed to superhuman beings associated with such natural
phenomena as the sun, the earth, fire, and water. It is about these beings
that a very rich mythology flourishes.

There is, however, another class of supernatural beings, the Kachinas,
who are regarded as ancestors, and of which the visible representation
appears during the ceremonial season in the form of masked dancers. Most
of the ceremonial is, from the social point of view, connected with the
organization of the Pueblos into religious fraternities or priesthoods. These
are often named after animals and objects of worship, and they claim
mystical affinities with snake and with fire, with antelope and with light-
ning, affinities again recorded in the stories of native mythology.

A brief outline of the nature of Hopi religion v/ill best be given in the
words of Dr. Murdoch, who, without any theoretical preconceptions in
favour of our thesis, yet summarizes the state of affairs almost in the
terms adopted in the present essay.

An agricultural people inhabiting a cool and arid region needs, above
all things, warmth and rain for the growth of its crops. It is under-
standable, consequently, that Hopi should worship a Sky God who
brings rain, an Earth Goddess who nourishes the seed, and a Sun God
who matures the crops, as well as a special Corn Mother and a God of
Growth or Germination. Moreover, the essential summer rains fall only
in sudden torrential thunderstorms at irregular and unpredictable inter-

A good, brief, and comprehensive account of one of the groups of the Pueblos is
given by G. P. Murdoch in Our Primitive Contemporaries, New York, 1934. The chapter
on the "Pueblos of New^ Mexico" in Patterns of Culture, London, 1935, by Dr. Ruth
Benedict, gives a very vivid picture, based partly on her own observations. My own
brief survey vi^as enriched by information generously given me by Mrs. Robert Aitken
(Miss Barbara Freire-Marecco) , who has intensively studied the Tewa on the First Mesa.
During a short visit there and among other settlements of the Pueblo, I was able to gain
a concrete impression, and had the good luck to be present at one of the Kachina dances
at Oraibi. The writings of Fewkes, of Voth, and of Curtis, valuable though they are,
suffer from the "false anatomy," the complete severing of mythology from ritual and
the treatment of the latter as if it were performed by marionettes. A good compensation
for that is to be found in the short but excellent monograph by Dr. H. K. Haeberlin,
The Idea of Fertility among the Pueblo Indians, 1916, which is one of the pioneering
works in functional anthropology.

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CULTURE AND MYTH

vals; sometimes they fail entirely'", or an unseasonable frost or severe
windstorm blights the crops. Thus man's very existence depends upon an
element of chance which manifests itself in ways so violent and seem-
ingly arbitrary that they suggest the agency of supernatural powers as
capricious as they are mighty. It is but natural, therefore, that the
Hopi should bend every effort to control these unseen powers through
propitiation and coercion. -"^^

It remains only to add that all the efforts to control the Unseen Powers
are carried out according to prescriptions mostly derived from the mytho-
logical past.

The function of Hopi religion, therefore, is identical with that which
we established on the basis of the Trobriand material and which we also
discovered in Central Australia. For these natives too have conceived of
a vast supernatural world, superimposed on their empirical reality. To pro-
pitiate this supernatural world by ritual, to establish concord between
man and the Universe by the observance of ethical rules, occupies half
of the Pueblos' existence. For the ethical element is prominent in Pueblo
religion. . . the Pueblos show a great advance over many primitive
tribes in that their legends and their priests reiterate constantly that
'prayer is not effective except the heart be good' ".^^

In scanning the detailed descriptions of Pueblo ritual contained in the
many volumes of Curtis, Fewkes, or [Henry R.] Voth, we can see that
this inner purity of heart is actually obtained by following a whole sys-
tem of lustrations, of abstinences, and by keeping a strict control of pas-
sions. ''One of the obligations that rest upon every priest and official
during the time when he is actively participating in religious observances
is that of feeling no anger." Virtue and morality in ordinary conduct
of life are also enjoined under supernatural sanctions. The failure of crops

^"Op. cit., p. 348.

^"M. R. Coolidge, The Rainmakers {Indians of Arizona and New Mexico), 1929,
p. 204. The same writer speaks also about the goodness, unselfishness, truth-telling,
respect for property, family and filial duty of the natives, and affirms that these virtues
are "closely connected with reUgious beUef and conduct, but not their principal object."
With this latter part I would agree, but it is the connexion of ethics with religious
belief and ritual which is too often overlooked in ethnographic theories and observations.

^ R. Benedict, op. cit., p. 61. This author adds that "anger is not tabu in order to
faciUtate communication with a righteous god who can only be approached by those with
a clean heart. It is rather a sign of concentration upon supernatural affairs, a state of
mind that constrains the supernaturals and makes it impossible for them to withhold
their share of the bargain. It has magical efficacy." I cannot follow this argument. The
very fact that a complete concentration of mind is necessary and that all passions must
be excluded when we approach God is essentially a moral rule. The fact that, in order
to attain magical efficacy, we must pay undivided attention to our spiritual communion,
demands what every theologian as well as the anthropologist or the man in the street
would call "a clean heart."

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS

333

is attributed to adultery quite as much as to insufficiency in ceremonial.
And here it is interesting to note that such moral precepts are based on
mythological foundations. For one of the main culture heroes of the peo-
ple, Alosaka, is described in one of the myths as being so thoroughly dis-
gusted when his wife was seduced and the people ravished women and
attacked the old, that he departed from this earth together with the
miraculous bounty he had brought, and returned to his mother, the Earth
Woman. The ethical motif can be found throughout Pueblo mythology.
Politeness, goodwill, offerings on the part of the culture heroes towards
gods are rewarded; evil deeds are punished.

I cannot enter, however, into the details of myth and ritual, and must
remain satisfied with the brief indication that, in Pueblo culture, not only
are myth and ritual closely connected with each other and with ethics,
but the whole religion is a by-product of man's adaptation to his environ-
ment.

till VII

CONCLUSIONS ON THE ANATOMY AND PATHOLOGY
OF RELIGION

From our brief ethnographic survey we can conclude that the scientific
analysis of religion is possible, for there are common elements in all reli-
gious systems as regards substance, form, and function. Every organized
faith, we have seen, must carry its specific apparatus, by which it ex-
presses its substance. There must be a dogmatic system backed by my-
thology or sacred tradition; a developed ritual in which man acts on his
belief and communes with the powers of the unseen world; there must
also be an ethical code of rules which binds the faithful and determines
their behaviour towards each other and towards the things they worship.
This structure or form of religion can be traced in totemism and animism,
in ancestor-worship as well as in the most developed monotheistic systems.

We find, moreover, that there exists an intrinsically appropriate subject-
matter in every religious system, a subject-matter which finds its natural
expression in the religious technique of ritual and ethics, and its validation
in sacred history. This subject-matter can be summed up as the twin
beliefs in Providence and in Immortality. By belief in Providence we un-
derstand the mystical conviction that there exist in the universe forces
or persons who guide man, who are in sympathy with man's destinies,
and who can be propitiated by man. This concept completely covers the
Christian's faith in God, One and Indivisible though present in Three
Persons, who has created the world and guides it to-day. It embraces also
the many forms of polytheistic paganism: the beUef in ancestor ghosts
and guardian spirits. Even the so-called totemic religions, based on the

334

CULTURE AND MYTH

conviction that man's social and cultural order is duplicated in a spiritual
dimension, through which he can control the natural forces of fertility
and of the environment, are but a rude version of the belief in Providence.
For they allow man to get in touch with the spiritual essence of animal
or plant species, to honour them and fulfil duties towards them, in return
for their yielding to his needs. The belief in Immortality in our higher
religions is akin to that of primitive creeds, some of which only affirm
a limited continuance after death, while others assume an immortality
consisting in repeated acts of reincarnation.

The substance of all religion is thus deeply rooted in human life; it
grows out of the necessities of life. In other words, religion fulfils a
definite cultural function in every human society. This is not a platitude.
It contains a scientific refutation of the repeated attacks on rehgion by
the less enlightened rationalists. If religion is indispensable to the integra-
tion of the community, just because it satisfies spiritual needs by giving
man certain truths and teaching him how to use these truths, then it is
impossible to regard religion as a trickery, as an "opiate for the masses,"
as an invention of priests, capitalists, or any other servants of vested
interests.

The scientific treatment of religion implies above all a clear analysis of
how it grows out of the necessities of human life. One line of approach
consists in the study of sacraments, that is, those religious acts which
consecrate the crises of human life, at birth, at puberty, at marriage, and
above all at death. In these religion gives a sense and a direction to the
course of life and to the value of personality. It binds the individual to
the other members of his family, his clan or tribe, and it keeps him in
constant relation with the spiritual world.

Another empirical approach shows how magical and religious phenom-
ena are directly dictated to man by the stresses and strains of life, and the
necessity of facing heavy odds; how faith and ritual must follow the
darker, more dangerous, and more tragic aspects of man's practical la-
bours. Here the material foundations of man's life ought to be scrutinized.
Agriculture, with its principal condition of rainfall and sunshine, leads
to the magic of fertility, to an elaborate ritual of sowing, flowering, har-
vest, and first-fruits, and to the institution of divine kings and chiefs.
Primitive food-gathering produces ceremonies of the Intichiuma type.
Hazardous pursuits, such as hunting and fishing, sailing and distant trad-
ing, yield their own type of ritual, belief, and ethical rules. The vicissi-
tudes of war and love are also rich in magical concomitants. Religion, no
doubt, combines all these elements in a great variety of designs or mosaics.
It is the object of science to discover the common elements in them,
though it may be the task of the artist or of the mystic to depict or to
cherish the individual phenomenon. But I venture to affirm that in not a
single one of its manifestations can religion be found without its firm

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH AND MORALS

335

roots in human emotion, which again always grows out of desires and
vicissitudes connected with hfe.

Two affirmations, therefore, preside over every ritual act, every rule of
conduct, and every belief. There is the affirmation of the existence of
powers sympathetic to man, ready to help him on condition that he con-
forms to the traditional lore which teaches how to serve them, conjure
them, and propitiate them. This is the belief in Providence, and this belief
assists man in so far as it enhances his capacity to act and his readiness
to organize for action, under conditions where he must face and fight not
only the ordinary forces of nature, but also chance, ill luck, and the
mysterious, ever incalculable designs of destiny.

The second belief is that beyond the brief span of natural life there is
compensation in another existence. Through this belief man can act and
calculate far beyond his own forces and limitations, looking forward to
his work being continued by his successors in the conviction that, from
the next world, he will still be able to watch and assist them. The suffer-
ings and efforts, the injustices and inequalities, of this life are thus made
up for. Here again we find that the spiritual force of this belief not only
integrates man's own personality, but is indispensable for the cohesion of
the social fabric. Especially in the form which this belief assumes in
ancestor-worship and the communion with the dead do we perceive its
moral and social influence.

In their deepest foundations, as well as in their final consequences, the
two beliefs in Providence and Immortality are not independent of one
another. In the higher religions man lives in order to be united to God.
In the simpler forms, the ancestors worshipped are often mystically identi-
fied with environmental forces, as in totemism. At times they are both
ancestors and carriers of fertility, as the Kachina of the Pueblos. Or again
the ancestor is worshipped as the divinity, or at least as a culture hero.

The unity of religion in substance, form, and function is to be found
everywhere. Religious development consists probably in the growing pre-
dominance of the ethical principle and in the increasing fusion of the two
main factors of all belief, the sense of Providence and the faith in im-
mortality.

The conclusions to be drawn with regard to contemporary events I
shall leave to the reader's own reflection. Is religion, in the sense in which
we have just defined it — the affirmation of an ethical Providence, of im-
mortality, of the transcendental value and sense of human life — is such
religion dead? Is it going to make way for other creeds, perhaps less exact-
ing, perhaps more immediately repaying and grossly satisfactory, but
creeds which, nevertheless, fail to satisfy man's craving for the Absolute;
fail to answer the riddle of human existence, and to convey the ethical
message which can only be received from a being or beings regarded as

336

CULTURE AND MYTH

beyond human passions, strife, and frailties? Is religion going to surrender
its own equipment of faith, ritual, and ethics to cross-breeds between
superstition and science, between economics and credulity, between politics
and national megalomania? The dogmatic affirmations of these new mys-
ticisms are banal, shallow, and they pander directly to the lowest instincts
of the multitude. This is true of the belief in the absolute supremacy of
one race and its right to bully all others; the belief in the sanctity of
egoism in one's own nationality; the conviction of the value of war and
collective brutality; the belief that only manual labour gives the full right
to live and that the whole culture and public life of a community must be
warped in the interests of the industrial workers.

Those of us who believe in culture and believe in the value of religion,
though perhaps not in its specific tenets, must hope that the present-day
misuse of the religious apparatus for partisan and doctrinaire purposes is
not a healthy development of religion, but one of the many phenomena in
the pathology of culture which seem to threaten the immediate develop-
ment of our post-war Western society. If this be so, these new pseudo-
religions are doomed to die. Let us hope that our whole society will not be
dragged with them to destruction. Let us work for the maintenance of
the eternal truths which have guided mankind out of barbarism to culture,
and the loss of which seems to threaten us with barbarism again. The
rationalist and agnostic must admit that even if he himself cannot accept
these truths, he must at least recognize them as indispensable pragmatic
figments without which civilization cannot exist.

INDEX

Abipones, 29

Abortion, 6, 64, 106, 139

Achomawi, 1 5

"Adam and Eve" theory of primitive

marriage. See Marriage
Adoption, 46, 62, 158
Adultery, 7, 17, 18, 38, 65, 128, 333.

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